


TRANSCENDENT: RUINATION

by Nindroid



Category: Lego Ninjago, The LEGO Ninjago Movie (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Transcendent AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-04-13 12:55:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14112792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nindroid/pseuds/Nindroid
Summary: Six teenagers gifted with elemental powers, trained under the guidance of Ninja Master Wu. They were sworn to protect Ninjago City from all that threatened it, their largest foe being Lord Garmadon, the father of their leader, Lloyd Garmadon. However, though glamorous crime fighting might seem, their ninja identities were kept hidden from their normal lives. There, it was a different story. There, Lloyd and his friends were known as the largest group of losers and freaks at school. Forced to protect a city that treated them like garbage, the ninja came to a conclusion... that enough is enough.It was then, on their way to defy the destiny they were told to follow, they end up rising to meet the destiny that was hidden from them.





	1. Chapter 1

**L** loyd Garmadon had the unfortunate pleasure of being the son of arguably the most infamous man in the history of Ninjago.

This was, much to his annoyance, not a little known fact. Lord Garmadon was known far and wide for his deeds, spreading chaos and destruction to satisfy the evil that festered within him.

In fact, Garmadon was probably getting ready for his next strike right this moment, while Lloyd was left staring glassy-eyed at the classroom whiteboard, chin resting in his hand as the kid behind him chucked paper clips at the back of his head.

Lloyd’s hand clenched around his pencil, teeth digging into his lip as he tried to follow the teacher despite the barrage to the head, a soft growl slipping out as his shoulders pulled in. Every ounce of him wanted to lash out, to jump out of his seat and tell the kid to knock it off, but the very second he threatened to rise, the teacher turned to the class and spoke.

“Alright, now, class. Your homework problems are on the board. Once you’ve got them written down, you’re free to go.”

_Thank every single god out there._

Lloyd gathered his things as fast as he could, eyes lowered as he shuffled out of the classroom and into the hall before anyone could say anything to him. He made his way down the hallway to his locker, throwing it open and shoving his notebooks into it, shoulders pulled in a defensive stance. It was just lunch. He could survive that, at least he’d be with his friends and it would be somewhat bearable.

“Yo, Lloyd!”

The blond tensed up at first but eased almost immediately as he saw a wave of brunette hair peek from behind his locker door. “Hey, Kai.”

“What up, dude? You good?” Kai beamed at him, popping open his locker and putting his books away before slamming it with much more force than necessary.

“Yeah, I… I’m good.”

Kai’s enthusiastic smile faltered, detecting the lie in Lloyd’s tone, but he decided against mentioning it. Instead, he leaned a bit closer to whisper, “By the way, dunno if you know. Master Wu wants us on the Bounty after school for some training thing.”

“Really?” Lloyd raised an eyebrow. This was the first he was hearing about it. “It’s been a while since he’s actually scheduled training for us. Do you know what it’s about?”

Kai shrugged. “Beats me. Probably to impart some lame wisdom junk on us again. You know how it is.”

Lloyd only shrugged in response, closing his locker door with a slight huff before looking up. A rumbling noise came down the hall from the opposite direction Kai did, growing stronger until Nya came whipping around the corner, revving her motorcycle down the empty halls with Cole trailing slowly on foot behind her.

“Hey, bro!” Nya beamed, stopping her bike just short of mowing the two teens over. “Check out the new paint job! It’s the _Lady Iron Dragon_ … my hero!”

Lloyd gave a nervous smile, grateful that no one else was in the hallway. Nya’s stunts were always prone to drawing unwanted attention. “It’s… great Nya!”

“Hey, Nya!” Kai spoke from around Lloyd. “Sweet ride!”

Nya scrunched her face slightly and when she spoke her tone was a bit more disappointed. “Oh, hey… actual bro.”

Kai rolled his eyes, crossing his arms as he leaned against the locker banks and waited for the others to put their things away. “Where’s Zane and Jay?”

“They said they’d meet us there. Something something… I didn’t understand them,” Cole mumbled, fumbling to grab his headphones out and untangle them.

“Hey, uh, Cole? Do you know about the training thi–” Lloyd turned to ask the other ninja something, but he already had his headphones on, effectively blocking out the world around him. He sighed. Guess he’d just have to figure out what was going on when he got there. Brushing it from his mind, he followed his friends as they headed to the lunchroom, enjoying this moment of quiet and friendly chatter while he still could.

The lunchroom was awash with the clangor of rowdy students, all unwinding the bulk of their energy with sub-par jokes and roughing up their friends a bit. Without fail, there was always, _always_ one table that never had anyone sitting at it. Said table had been defaced time and time again, the words “losers,” “freaks,” and other such things scratched into and written across its surface. The ninja took an odd sort of pleasure in it, though, that this table was unmistakably _theirs_ , regardless.

After getting their lunches, they sat down around the table, which was when Kai noticed one of the other students was watching them like a hawk. He huffed slightly turning back to the others.

“Warning, jerkhead at 3 o’clock ,” he muttered. “Better ignore him.” Of course, the “jerkhead” in question didn’t make that easy. He never did.

“Hey hey, Dork Squad!”

“Oh, great,” Nya rolled her eyes. “Now we’re going to get an earful from _cheer boy_ , here.”

“Whatever, sister,” Chen scoffed, disregarding the other ninja to focus on his favorite target. “Where’re your other two losers, Garma _dork_ ? The freak and the nervous wreck?” He leaned against the table, glancing over each of them before his eyes fell to rest on Cole, who had since turned up the volume on his music to drown out the noise.

“What do you want, Chen?” Lloyd hissed, putting down his sandwich and giving the cheerleader a look of disdain.

“Hold on,” said Chen before reaching over and taking a firm hold on Cole’s headphones, ripping them off his head. “ _Hello_ ~! Earth to metalhead! I’m talking to you!”

In a split second, Cole was on his feet, pure rage painted across his expression. His clenched fist immediately went to swing at the other, but Lloyd’s hand flew to Cole’s bicep and gripped tightly. The earth ninja seemed to deflate at that, Chen giving a slight laugh as he sunk back into his seat.

“Isn’t that better? Now, then, as I was saying…” Chen leaned in again over the table, both hands flat against it. “It’s a bit of a shame that– Oh, wait, nevermind. Look who decided to join the _fun_ .”

Zane and Jay made their way over to the table, and at the sight of Chen, Jay ducked behind the nindroid. “Oh, no…” Jay mumbled. “What does _he_ want?”

“I’m honestly a bit offended you didn’t notice! We gave your loser table a new feature!” With that, the cheerleader gave a swift kick to one of the legs of the table, prompting the whole thing to drop from under them.

Each of them immediately leapt to their feet, and Lloyd swore he saw sparks skip off Kai’s fingers. The chorus of laughter than ensued pulled pure rage from them, and Lloyd felt himself cave inwards.

“See you later, dorks!” Chen turned from them at that, his voice joining the laughter as he walked away.

As Chen left, Kai felt his flames begin to rise within him, his foot stomping on the ground and sending a small spray of orange sparks out. “That’s it! _That’s it!_ ” The other ninja, still shaken, turned to watch him with a nervous stare. “I’m going to burn this goddamn school down I swear to the Gods!”

“Kai, come on–” Lloyd started.

“No! That’s enough! I’ve had enough of this!”

“Please, Kai–”

The fire ninja turned to the other, still fuming, but his face fell as he saw the way Lloyd was curled with his hands clasped over his ears. Cole and Nya were on either side of him, Cole with one arm wrapped around his shoulders and Nya with her hand placed on his bicep.

Kai eased ever so slightly, that was until there was a small snort from one of the other students followed by, “Look at that psycho freak! Is he finally gonna lose it?”

“Haha, maybe! I’d like to see him try!”

The temperature seemed to rise slightly as Kai’s shoulders pulled and Zane looked to Lloyd, who made a slight motion and prompted the nindroid to quickly shuffle up beside him and put his hands carefully on the fire ninja’s shoulders.

“Kai, let it go. Not now,” Zane spoke slow, gently pulling out the heat that radiated off of the other to try and neutralize his influence.

“Come on,” Lloyd muttered. “We’ve got better things to do.” At this point, the green ninja appeared to have mostly relaxed, now the most of the noise had died down, but he was still obviously in some form of distress.

“We can’t keep doing this forever…” Kai hissed, shrugging off Zane’s grasp.

“I know, I know. J-just… Not now.”

“Yeah, bro. Cool off. It wasn’t even that funny of a stunt, I don’t know what he was thinking,” Nya said with a slight huff, jamming her hands into her pockets.

“We can just… go somewhere else! Yeah, that’s… that sounds like a good idea. Way better than, uhh, any… any other outcome to this scenario…” Jay mumbled.

Kai was still visibly fuming, but he conceded. “Fine. Whatever. Sure…”

With Kai placated, Lloyd let himself deflate, thankful that the others were there to help mediate. Even though they were older than him, he was responsible for keeping the team in check, and he had no clue what he’d do if Kai started fighting people with his elemental powers in the middle of the lunchroom… or worse. From behind, Cole gave the green ninja a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “C’mon, bud. We can all eat outside today, okay?”

Lloyd released a breath he didn’t know he was even holding in. “Yeah… Yeah, okay.”

To Lloyd’s relief, the rest of the school day went by rather uneventfully. Or rather, about as eventfully as usual. “Witty” remarks from other students about how insufferable they all were, despite minding their own business. Zane getting his books knocked out of his hands, Lloyd getting shoved in the hallways. The usual stuff, really. At this point, unfortunately, they had all steeled themselves to that stuff. It was a blessing when the last bell rang, and they were finally able to leave that wretched place for the rest of the day.

Of course, that didn’t mean the end of the day’s work. Not for the green ninja.

* * *

The sound of ships coming and going from the shore and the soft lapping of the water against the dock was the only sound for quite some time as the six ninja situated themselves on the deck of the Destiny’s Bounty to await their ninja master.

“What does he even have planned for us?” Cole broke the silence. “We haven’t had training in what, months? I thought we were in peak physical condition, or whatever.”

“Cole is correct,” Zane stated. “It has been almost three months since our last proper training session.”

“Like I know what Wu wants. Dude’s harder to understand than a fortune cookie,” said Kai.

“Students.”

Each of the ninja straightened a bit more at the voice and turned as Master Wu emerged from the lower deck of the Bounty. He laughed slightly at the sudden stand to attention he was given. “Please, as you were. I’m glad you came. Sit down. We have much to discuss.”

“Oh, boy…” Jay mumbled.

They did as they were asked, however, and each other them sat cross-legged in a semicircle around their master.

“I hope you know, you are not in trouble. I’m not your parents. However, as your ninja master, I have… concerns.”

“Like what?” Nya asked.

“Yeah! We’ve been out there kicking Garmadon’s butt for how long, now? What’s the issue?” Kai cut in.

“That _is_ the problem, Kai. You’ve been too complacent! You rely on your mechs and machines too heavily, your training has fallen to the wayside. Garmadon is becoming tired of this squabble. I fear he is mounting an attack much larger than before, and all of you have become content to do nothing but play video games instead of honing your skills.”

The six teenagers all looked to each other, each trying to decide what to say before Wu started again.

“You must be in peak condition for whatever Garmadon may throw at you. There will not always be a time when your mechs will save you, and you must be ready for that. Now, get up! Today you will be sparring. Get ready.”

“Yes, Master Wu,” they said in unison, standing up.

They went to the wall of the cabin of the Bounty, where all their weapons had been hung neatly and pulled them off, returning to the main deck and pairing up.

“This sucks…” Kai mumbled as he readied his swords across from Zane. “I expected more… wisdom junk, less scolding.”

“Perhaps it is best we take it at face value,” Zane pulled an arrow from his quiver at that, knocking it on his bowstring. “After all, it could’ve been worse.”

Each of the ninja sunk into a ready position across from each other. Kai and Zane, Nya and Jay, and Cole and Lloyd.

“Ready?” Master Wu asked from his position near the cabin. He paused, looking at each of them before nodding. “Begin.”

The wide deck of the airship became awash with the clangor of them fighting. Zane pulled back on his bow, the tip of the arrow forming frozen crystals before it was fired near Kai’s ankles. The arrow splintered into ice shards as it hit the wooden deck and crawled outwards, encasing the fire ninja’s feet in ice as he tried to charge. Grunting, he gripped the handles of his swords tighter, the blades beginning to heat to a dull orange that he swiped at the ice holding him in place and it spat as it began to sublimate.

Zane readied another arrow, shuffling back from his adversary to put a bit more distance between them, but Kai had freed himself before it could be loosed. He charged the ice ninja, swiping down overhead with both swords that soon clashed with the metal arms of his bow as it was held to defend. Zane grunted, locking his elbow as Kai swiped his blades downward, the nindroid spinning the arrow around in his off hand and moving to jab at the fire ninja’s chest while he still had his arms up.

Meanwhile, Nya spun her spear in a wide arc in front of her, calling forth a stream of water to follow it and sending it towards Jay. Jay planted his feet and blue sparks jumped from his fingers before he thrust both his hands out in front of him and sent bolts of electricity towards the water whip headed his direction. They crackled and spit as they collided, the water vaporizing off from the heat and Jay smirking as Nya’s attack didn’t even make it to him.

The water ninja huffed, readying her spear and going for a harsh jab. Jay hopped to the side, snapping out with his flail and whipping the chain around the end of her spear, trying to pull it from her grasp. Nya wasn’t having it, though, and pulled back harder in kind, causing the brunette to stumble and twist his hand harshly to try and untangle his weapon before Nya could pull him off his feet. He, of course, wasn’t fast enough, and his face hit the wood with a harsh thud. In the process of trying to pull himself up, he sent a sharp jolt of electricity through his hand that was still holding his flail connected to Nya’s spear, shocking her.

“Ow! _Jay!_ ” she yelped.

“Sorry, Nya! No hard feelings?”

The water ninja snickered, yanking her spear back out of the tangle. “…Only because seeing you hit the deck was pretty funny.”

Lloyd had to fight hard to fend of Cole’s slow, heavy blows. Time and time again his hammer struck the deck and Lloyd swore he was about to smash right through it, but he could tell Cole was pulling his punches.

A heavy swing came down over his head, and Lloyd threw up his sword to block it, but only just barely. Cole was still much stronger, and that hammer probably weighed about as much as he did, so his sword couldn’t really do a whole lot to block it head on, instead trying to deflect or dodge entirely. Lloyd twisted his sword and hitched the flat of the blade into the joint where the head of the hammer met the handle and swung his arm outwards, sidestepping as it slid down to crash towards him.

Cole stepped to follow the trajectory of his weapon so as to not be pulled off balance before hefting the thing back up and stepping back as the green ninja went to slice across his chest.

The whole ship swayed a little bit occasionally, as fire and ice and water and lightning clashed in vibrant displays across its deck. Lloyd glanced over a few times, narrowly avoiding getting hit as he did, but his attention snapped almost completely as he heard Kai yell, “Hey, no fair!” and saw Zane, his bow on the ground, both hands gripping the blades of either of the fire ninja’s katanas before–

_WHACK!_

Stars sparkled through the green ninja’s eyes as Cole’s hammer, that felt like it was about ten tons just now, collided with his ribs and he was sent sprawling across the wood floor.

“Enough!” Master Wu’s voice rose above the noise of it all and silence instantly fell across them all.

“Oh, shit… Sorry, Lloyd!” Cole dropped his hammer and rushed to the younger ninja’s side, taking his hand to help him get up. “You okay, dude?”

“Yeah, I… I think I’m good,” Lloyd mumbled, rubbing where he was hit with his other hand.

Master Wu strode over, lifting a hand to place it gently on his nephew’s shoulder. “Lloyd, you are clearly distracted. A ninja who lets his mind wander leaves himself open to attack. What is troubling you?”

Lloyd tensed a little at the contact, but slowly eased, letting out a long breath. “Master Wu… It’s been… four years since you made me the green ninja and I haven’t gotten any powers yet. You keep telling me I’m supposed to be the most powerful ninja, but I… I can’t do what they do. I can’t create fire, or make a flood, or- or cause an earthquake.”

The others shifted a bit, moving closer as their faces fell to match Lloyd’s as he continued. “And no matter what I do, Garmadon keeps coming back. So maybe if there was, like… I don’t know, something I could do to unlock my powers. Some kind of trial, or a weapon, or something! Then maybe we can get rid of him for good, maybe–”

“Lloyd!” Wu snapped. Lloyd tensed, eyes darting up to meet his uncle’s gaze. It was harsh at first but soon softened after a moment. “Come with me, Lloyd. The rest of you keep training! We will return momentarily.”

The old man ushered Lloyd into the cabin of the Bounty and to his private quarters on it. “ _Whaaat_ are we doing in here, uncle Wu?”

“Let me show you something, nephew.” On one side of the room, there was a large wooden case that Wu strode up to. He leaned his bamboo staff up against the wall, opening the latch on the case and lifting out what looked to be just a big metal tube at first. Turning around, Lloyd was able to get a better look at it and… well, it looked like a big metal tube still. It was a matte silver all over, except either end and the single button on the side was glossy. It didn’t really look like something that should’ve been kept in a locked chest.

“This, Lloyd, is the Ultimate Weapon.”

“The… _Ultimate Weapon_ , huh? It doesn’t _look_ very ultimate. What does it even do?”

Wu shook his head slightly, disapproving, almost. “Do not be so quick to judge. Not all power is obvious. This weapon is powerful enough to defeat even the likes of Garmadon.”

The young boy seemed to perk up at the last addition, leaning in to get a better look at the device. “What? Why are you just _now_ showing this to me? We could’ve used this, like, ages ago, Master! We wouldn’t have to worry about Garmadon or anything else with this!”

“This is a lesson. Listen to me. The power contained within this weapon is immense and, in the wrong hands, could spell destruction for all of Ninjago.”

Lloyd almost reached for it as Wu held it out for him to inspect, though he figured he’d be reprimanded for trying. “But, in my hands–”

“Your hands _are_ the wrong hands. Though it may have the strength to defeat your father, many would be hurt in the process.”

Wu turned back, placing the Ultimate Weapon back into its box and snapping it shut, the green ninja before him looking down at his own gloved hands. He thought he was supposed to be the most powerful ninja of all, but _his_ hands were the wrong ones? He’s the good guy, here.

“Lloyd, you must not desire the power within you to destroy your father. Just as this weapon, using your powers the wrong way, even if it’s for the right reasons, will only lead to destruction. Do you understand?”

Lloyd let out a long, low sigh. “Yes, Master Wu.”

There was a pause as Wu grabbed his staff once more before making his way towards the door. “That is all for today. If you wish to join your friends again, you may, but you are welcome to head home.”

“Thank you, Master Wu.” Yeah, he supposed he was done for the day. Some kind of “training” this was.

* * *

Lloyd supposed he could feel lucky for that day. Garmadon didn’t attack, so at the very least the only thing that got destroyed was the table and a bit of his spirit, rather than the downtown buildings that just got rebuilt. A slightly shaky hand reached out, grabbing the knob to his apartment door and shoving it open. He pulled in a breath, put on his best smile, and lifted his head in anticipation for his mother’s greeting.

“Hey, sweetie!” Right on cue. Koko smiled wide at him, putting down the plate she was washing and drying off her hands on the nearby towel. “How was your day?”

“ _Heeey_ , mom. It was… good. Pretty good.”

“Are you sure? It doesn’t sound like it.”

“Oh, y’know, just… There were some jerks at lunch today, but it wasn’t a big deal. I’m… I’m fine.”

Koko gave a low sigh, stepping forwards slowly to pull her son close to her chest. “What did those jerks say?”

“Just… some stuff about dad,” Lloyd mumbled as he gently hugged back. “But really, mom. It’s whatever. I didn’t listen to them.”

“Well, that’s good.” She let go of the embrace after a few moments, giving the other a gentle kiss on the cheek. “Listen, Lloyd. All that matters is that you’re genuine. You can take pleasure in knowing that you’ve probably got it better than them since they’ve had to sink as low as that.”

“Yeah… Thanks, mom.”

“Of course. Now, go get started on your homework. I’ve got to finish these dishes or else they’re never gonna get done.” Koko punctuated that with a light laugh and Lloyd couldn’t help but smile back at her before he slipped into his room and his face fell with his entire body onto his bed.

_What. A. Nightmare._

It felt like every bone in his body had started to ache. He didn’t quite realize it at first, but laying here in the silence, he realized how wound up he had gotten and it was all unfurling. He almost got up to do is homework. Almost. But at that moment his mattress was too comfortable for its own good, and he couldn’t help but fall asleep like that.


	2. Chapter 2

**T** he next day didn’t seem to bode well, either. It was still the same old, same old. Lloyd didn’t even know why he still bothered to take the bus, but he didn’t want to bother Koko anymore than was absolutely necessary. She was busy, she still had to go to work, she barely had enough time to make breakfast this morning, he could suffer through it for her.

Hands shoved into his pockets, he waited at the bus stop, gritting his teeth as the other kids waiting for him whispered to each other and gave him sidelong glances.

Lloyd knew what they were saying, it was always the same. “ _I still can’t believe we get on at the same stop._ ” “ _I know! Can’t he get a ride?_ ” And other similar things. He stopped bothering to say hi a long time ago.

The bus arrived and the kids at the stop all piled on, pushing past Lloyd and forcing him to go last. He grimaced as a hush fell over the bus the second he came into view, a rogue paper airplane drifting lazily towards him and giving him a dull thunk on the forehead.

The blond ninja gave the airplane a gentle shove with his foot as he slipped into the nearest empty seat, waiting for everyone in the vicinity to shy away. Which they did without hesitation. This was going to be his lift for the next few minutes. Looking down at his phone and ignoring the hushed tones of, “ _His dad knocked down our apartment building last week and they’re still rebuilding._ ” “ _Yeah, my house got destroyed last time._ ” “ _I think he almost looked at me! Did you see that? Oh, Gods._ ”

As usual, that carried on the rest of the way to school. At least when he got there, though, it was less… painfully obvious, he guessed.

Zane perked up from where he was sitting. He was usually the first to greet Lloyd when he got there. “Hello, Lloyd! It’s good to see you. How was your morning?”

“Oh, y’know… Same old,” Lloyd mumbled.

“My sensors indicate you’re experiencing a strikingly above-average level of social anxiety.”

“No,” the younger ninja sighed, visibly deflating. “No, Zane, it’s… it’s about average.”

The two stepped in through the front doors, as usual ignoring the side-eyed looks and hushed remarks. Right on time, Kai came down the hall towards them. “Hey, hey, Lloyd!” He was thrilled as ever, walking up to Lloyd and throwing an arm around his shoulders. Secretly, though, he tugged off a sticky note that had been pressed against the blond’s back at some point that read ‘kick me.’ “Ready to start the day?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

“Sure, sure. You got this, though, bro! You always do!”

They started on their way to the lockers, chatting amongst each other with Kai bursting out laughing every now and again until they got to their bank. Nya was already in her locker organizing her things, and Cole and Jay were stood firmly in front of Lloyd’s. Cole was looking down at his phone, leaning against Lloyd’s locker with his headphones on.

Lloyd shuffled up to him, nudging him a bit. “Hey, Cole. Can I get to my locker?”

The earth ninja looked up, but made a motion to his headphones, indicating he couldn’t hear him.

“Cole, I do really need to get in my locker.”

“Sorry, dude. Can’t hear you. Your lips are moving but no sound is coming out.”

“Ha ha,” Lloyd said sarcastically. “Very funny. Now can you drop the act?”

Cole and Jay shared a look, and Jay’s was rather nervous. Dropping his shoulders and pulling his headphones down so they rested around his neck, the earth ninja moved out of the way. Behind him, someone had spray-painted in big red letters, ‘GARMA-DORK’ over his locker.

“I’m sorry, Lloyd. I just… we didn’t want you to see it,” Cole spoke.

“It’s not that bad, though!” Jay said. “It should come off pretty easy.”

“Yeah! We can use Jay’s scarf,” Nya added with a snort, slamming the door to her locker.

“Guys, it’s okay. I’m not bothered by it,” said Lloyd. He was, and they could all tell from the way he visibly dropped his shoulders, all the enthusiasm from before draining from him in a single motion. But they dropped it there and let the youngest of them organize his things before they left for their respective classes.

Just when he thought his day couldn’t get any worse, though. Lloyd settled into his seat, putting his face in his hands when a blaring alarm sounded and nearly made him jump into the ceiling.

Every single eye in the classroom turned to him and he felt like caving in on himself as there was a chorus of, “ _Thanks_ , Lloyd!” like this was something he directly caused, not something he was about to stop.

Garmadon was attacking. Lloyd knew his father must’ve been getting antsy, but this time he wasn’t entirely sure what was going to be thrown at them and that scared him more than ever. As everyone ducked under their desks, he slipped from the classroom and into the hall where he was met by five other familiar faces all ducking out of their own class.

“Let’s do this, guys,” Lloyd speaks with confidence to his friends, but inside he was trembling. Maybe outside, too, but if that was the case, no one was saying anything. They nodded in unison and took off down the hall.

* * *

Getting into their mechs was second nature at this point, like putting on their clothes in the morning. Each of them pulled their cowls down over their faces, grasping the controls on the massive machines.

Lloyd clambered up the pile of spare parts the Green Dragon Mech was curled around, situating himself behind the controls and pulling his shoulders in. “Alright, ninjas! This looks like a big one, so let’s give ‘em everything we got! Call signs, now!”

“Fire Mech, standing by.”

“Ice Tank interface link successful and standing by.”

“Lightning Jet, ready! And, uh, totally not nervous!”

“Quake Mech at full volume and ready!” 

“Water Strider ready to go!”

“Green Dragon ready to launch! Let’s do this, guys!”

The hangar sprung open, each mech flying from it and barreling with purpose towards the city. They’d done this a thousand times before, Lloyd almost didn’t need to tell them what to do. It was second nature at this point, everything was the same formula again. This time felt different, though. This time it felt like something much more sinister and by the look of Garmadon’s new massive mech, he was probably right.

“You guys know what to do. I’m going after Garmadon,” Lloyd spoke with determination, but part of him was still terrified.

“Wait, maybe I should take on Garmadon? Or… or maybe all of us should?” Jay piped in over the headset.

“What? N-no, no. I… I got him don’t worry. I’ll be toats profesh.”

“What does that mean?” Kai asked.

Nya answered with a short laugh. “He’s saying he’s totally professional.”

“Oh. Well, why is he toats abbrevin’?”

“I believe Lloyd is nervous!” Zane pointed out.

Lloyd snorted, gripping the controls a little bit harder. “That’s– that’s not true at all, absolutely not.”

“Incorrect. I detect that your heart rate has elevated dramatically.”

“Listen, guys! I got this, okay? Promise. You guys take care of the rest of the Shark Army, make sure everyone is safe.”

There was radio silence between the rest of the ninja, though through that they could all sort of tell. This was a bad idea. Regardless, though, they each pulled back, slipping back into the usual routine.

Lloyd pushed forward hard on the Green Dragon’s controls, teeth gritted beneath his cowl as he rushed towards the hulking form of Garmadon’s mech. “Alright, Garmadon! You’re going down!” He lifted a hand, pressing a few buttons on his display before his mech seemed to roar to life.

The villain’s machine lurched, turning slowly to face the ever-approaching green ninja. There was an air of confidence to him, one that brought back that fear Lloyd had managed to choke down for some time and out of sheer panic alone, he slammed the last button he needed to before snapping his eyes shut.

A computer generated voice spoke from the Green Dragon, “Releasing full payload.” The entire body of the machine seemed to spring open at that, launching each of its full armaments at full power towards Garmadon that each impacting with a roaring fury.

Smoke filled the area and after the sound of the explosions died down and the smoke began to dissipate, all that was left was Lloyd hurtling towards an entirely unfazed Garmadon.

“Nice try, Green Ninja.”

Before Lloyd could even react, the massive hand of Garmadon’s mech was around the throat of his dragon and with a single, swift movement, flung it entirely to the wayside. Clinging to the bulk of the machine for dear life, Lloyd braced himself as he hit the water.

Over the radios, all they heard was a shout and then static.

Kai spoke up, panic in his voice. “Uhm, Jay? What just happened?”

Jay, similarly panicked, visibly shaking in the cockpit of the jet as he weaved between Shark Army ships. “G… Oh Gods… Garmadon just took out Lloyd!”

“What?!” The response was in unison, each of them wheeling their mechs in the direction Lloyd’s went.

Jay dodged a few shots from the enemy ships. “Guys, what do we do?! What do we do?!”

“I have to get to Lloyd!” The Fire Mech lurched at that, belching out a few flames to ward off the swarm of crab bots that threatened to overtake him.

“But what about Garmadon?! He’s climbing Ninjago Tower!” Jay shouted back, pulling hard on the controls to swing his jet around to prop himself under a cable car being threatened by more Shark Army.

Maniacal laughter filled the city, followed by the crunching sounds of Garmadon’s massive mechanical suit scaling the central, tallest building.

“We are being overrun!” Zane hollered, panic rising in his voice. Scrambling, he popped open the canopy of the Ice Tank and pulling out his bow to fire a few shots at the Shark Army foot soldiers that had started trying to board him.

“Yeah, you don’t have to tell me twice. I could really use some help here!” Cole’s mech whipped around, knocking down as many ships and vehicles as he could with its fists before he was forced to back up.

“We can’t get to you, Cole! Does anyone have eyes on Lloyd? Jay?”

“A little busy here, Kai!”

Shouting filled the communications link, each of them taken essentially to their knees as Garmadon was left, unhindered, the foot of his mech touching down on the roof of the building. A fervor of pure panic washed over the city as they all waited with baited breath. No one was coming.

“ _Heeey_ , Ninjago! It’s Garmadon time now!”

* * *

Lloyd sputtered, clambering over the body of his dragon, pulling his cowl down to shake out his sopping hair and spit out his mouthful of water. Rubbing his eyes, he looked back towards the city and saw only chaos.

Over the comms, he only heard panicked shouting, something about Garmadon winning before he pulled the link with a huff.

Looking around, he saw the Destiny’s Bounty docked nearby, near enough for him to swim to and climb aboard. Lloyd clambered up the ladder on the side, peeking up over the railing. To his surprise, he saw Master Wu there, fighting off what looked to be Garmadon’s newest General #1 and a few other Shark Army foot soldiers. He started to pull himself up over the side of the boat, reaching back to his sword to ready it as he did, but–

He paused, remembering what Wu had told him during training. His grip faltered on the handle of his sword, only partially removed from its sheath before letting go completely.

This was a direct action against all his uncle had advised. Part of him wanted to join the fray, to help Wu in battling off the generals. The other part was convinced otherwise, though. Lloyd knew his friends were in trouble, even if he did help Wu, there was no telling if they would even be able to stop Garmadon. Looking over the city, having heard the chaos over the comms, everything looked bleak. He knew what he had to do.

Slipping unseen, he climbed over the railing and ducked into the Bounty, throwing open the case that housed the Ultimate Weapon and pulling it from its slot. Just as quickly, despite the weight of the weapon, he was able to duck back out and return to his mech. Despite the machine being somewhat waterlogged, he was able to give it a few good kicks before it started back up and rose from the water. Garmadon may have thought he won, but this? This was going to change everything. He knew it was.

* * *

Lloyd pulled his cowl back on one-handed, taking in a deep breath as he pressed the Ultimate Weapon close to his body under his arm. There was that panic again, threatening to overtake him once more. He fought it down, tooth and nail, fingers digging into the barrel of the weapon.

The dragon came up behind where Garmadon had planted his mech and the green ninja stood, feet firmly planted to his mech, raising the weapon and taking aim towards his adversary.

“Stand down, Garmadon,” he spoke with a confidence he didn’t quite expect, hand hovering over the one and only button on the weapon.

“Wh… what?” Garmadon’s mech turned, shocked; and in the mouth of the machine, the warlord himself sat, staring wide-eyed at the spectacle before him. “The Green Ninja and…” he gasped. “The _legendary Ultimate Weapon_?! Where did you get that? Wu didn’t send you with that thing, did he?”

“I am _sick_ and _tired_ of you trying to conquer Ninjago!” Lloyd commanded. “This ends now! I demand that you leave this city once and for all!”

“Alright, Lloyd. Now, listen. Just calm down. You don't have to use that thing.”

“So, you’re going to leave Ninjago?”

“Yes.”

“ _Forever?_ ”

“I promise.” Garmadon lifted his uppermost arms in defeat, leaning back a bit with the lower two behind him.

Lloyd paused, tensing a bit as he watched Garmadon. “Wh-what are you doing there? What are you doing with your hands behind your back like that? Are you crossing your fingers?”

“I’m not! Do you think I would be so childish enough to do that?” Garmadon was quick to pull all four of his hands forwards, each with their fingers splayed. “Look! See? No crossies.”

“It’s over, Garmadon. Now, and forever. And everyone will know that it was me who defeated you!”

“Lloyd, come on. We can work this out.” Carefully, Garmadon’s mech began to inch closer and closer to Lloyd, forcing him to back up and panic to rise in his chest.

“Wh… what are you doing? Why are you doing that?”

“I just want to talk to you, Lloyd. Father to son.”

“Back up! I’m warning you! I’ll fire this!”

“Listen, Lloyd. We both know you’re not gonna shoot your old man. Let’s just talk this out.”

“Dad, please! I said back off, I–” After a few moments of strained hesitation over the warlord’s remarks, Lloyd finally caved and his hand slammed heavily onto the button of the Ultimate Weapon, squeezing his eyes shut.

Garmadon recoiled, holding his hands up in front of his face as if bracing for something to hit him. “Oh– You actually– You did it! I’m _melting_! I– I–” He paused after a moment of flailing his arms, red eyes slowly peeking open as he realized he was not, in fact, melting. “I’m– Wh… why is nothing happening?”

“What?” Lloyd looked down at the weapon and all that emitted from it was a bright red light that shone towards where it was pointed at Garmadon. He turned it upright, the light shining towards the sky, looking over the entirety of the thing in case he missed something– A safety switch, something to load into it, anything–

“ _That’s_ all it does? Shine a light? I guess my brother really is desperate,” Garmadon snorted.

Panicking, the ninja pressed the button a few more times, mumbling to himself as he turned it over, inadvertently pointing it on a building across the way. “No, no, no, no…”

Over the sound of Garmadon’s laughter, though, a low rumble was heard. The two stopped and turned to look at where it was originating from and Lloyd’s heart dropped.

Suddenly, an enormous creature came crashing through the streets. It emitted a deep, rumbling sound, almost like a meow, before lashing out at the red laser point on the side of the building. The structure crumbled like a house of cards under the paw of the beast. Almost immediately, Lloyd flipped the Ultimate Weapon back around, but in doing so caught the attention of the beast. Wherever the light was pointed, it followed. Panic ensued as the monster began its rampage, stepping on cars and buildings like they were made of sand.

“Generals! Grab the Green Ninja!” Garmadon’s voice cut through the commotion and Lloyd whipped around to try and ward off the Shark Army generals that started to surround him. Before he could get a hit off, though, Garmadon himself had hopped down from his mech, sweeping the ninja’s legs out from under him, snatching the weapon as it was dropped.

“No!” Lloyd stumbled and reached for the weapon, but before he could get far, several generals overtook him and pulled him down. “Wait! Wait! No, no, no!”

The warlord laughed, stepping to the edge of the building. “Well, now that you got this baby all warmed up for me…” He pointed the weapon off the side, grinning as he did. “Let’s try it on some moving targets.”

“Uh… guys?” Kai crackled in over the comms. “Jay, do you have eyes on them? What’s happening, I–”

Static buzzed as the sound of metal crunching took over, the monster pouncing on the Fire Mech and taking it to the ground. Panic filled Kai as the creature began to bite and claw at the machine, tossing it around and threatening to puncture the flammable tanks mounted on the back. He wrestled with the strappings that held him in and slammed the controls, trying to wiggle himself free, but the mech was unresponsive and he couldn’t risk leaving with the creature still on him. The back of the Fire Mech scraped along the street and Kai curled up in fear that the tanks would rupture and that would be it, but with the thing pinned awkwardly up against a building, the creature suddenly darted off.

“Kai?! Kai, come in!” Zane leaned forwards in the tank, wheeling it around to face where he last saw the fire ninja. As he looked up, a bright red light filled his vision and he lifted a hand to try and block it out. He shouted, pressing himself back as a dark shadow overtook the bright light, a massive paw coming down on the front of the tank and caving the entire front section down on top of him. Claws raked at the back, sheets of the tank’s hull being peeled off like wrapping paper. He desperately tried to crane the gun with what little control he had left, but it was snapped off with ease. Zane felt himself begin to tighten, his breath coming in short, panicked gasps before pain tore through him as the monster dug into the inner workings of the Ice Tank and decimated the engine.

Cole wheeled his mech around, snapping his gaze around in a panic to look for the monster that was picking them off one by one. As he looked up, all he could see was red, his hands lifting from the turntables, “Augh! What the heck?!” It wasn’t long before it was upon him, toppling the whole Quake Mech backwards and biting into his canopy glass.

“Oh Gods, oh Gods, oh Gods, guys! Guys what do we do! They got Kai and Zane and–” Jay’s panicked transmission was cut short as two paws flung upwards to clamp down on either side of the Lightning Jet, yanking it from the sky. In a flurry of motion, Jay slammed on the controls to eject himself from the cockpit, waiting for the beast to be on the ground before pulling his parachute.

Nya gripped the controls harder than ever, blinking back tears as she tried skid her mech as fast as she could away from it, hoping she could outrun it, dodge it, do… _something_. Anything. “ _Anyone?_ Does anyone come in? What is this thing?” She ducked under a swiping paw, a loud hiss sounding from the beast, her heart racing as she tried to weave as best she could until– 

A crash, as a heavy hit landed on the side of her cockpit, throwing the Water Strider off balance and sending it spiraling.

Atop the building, tears welled in Lloyd’s eyes as he watched each of the machines get torn to shreds.

Garmadon huffed, pressing the button on the Ultimate Weapon once more to turn off the laser. “Five ninjas down, one to go.” His own mech hummed to life once more and gave one solid kick to the side of the Green Dragon, sending it tumbling off the side of building to the city street below.  
  
“Now that we’re finally alone, how about we have a little father-to-son chat?”  
  
In a fit, Lloyd hopped up, ripping his cowl from his face. “ _Now_ you’re ready to talk?! You ruined my life, dad!”  
  
Garmadon seemed taken aback. “Ruin it? Lloyd, you misunderstand. I did all this for you! I–”  
  
“I don’t care why you did it! You could’ve just talked to me sooner, you could’ve done… _anything_ else! But you…” His voice choked up a moment before he shifted forwards in a motion to attack towards Garmadon until a Shark Army general grabbed his shoulder. “You killed my friends! You ruined everything!”   
  
“You mean those pesky ninja pals of yours? Lloyd, they were only getting in the way! Ninjago is mine, now. It’s ours! Our city! We can have a life together now! Listen to me!”

Garmadon scrambled to defend himself, desperate to convince Lloyd otherwise. That was, until the ninja ripped free of the general’s grasp, dodging the hands that scrambled to get ahold of him again and kicking them away as he made his way to the edge of the building. Looking back, Lloyd looked his father dead in the eyes.

“ _I wish you weren’t my father._ ”

With that, he jumped off, sliding down a flagpole and ripping the large banner from its place to use it to parachute down. Tears welled in his eyes and as he looked around at the chaos, they began to fall as shuddered sobs shook his form.


	3. Chapter 3

**C** ole stood on what used to be the sidewall of his cockpit, hands pressed to the windshield glass that was locked shut and refused to budge. “Guess I have to do this the hard way,” he mumbled, feeling the glass to find the best spot on it. His fingers felt a slight fracture, no doubt where the monster had attempted to bite it, and taking up his hammer, he pressed the top of it there before reeling back and slamming into it.

The glass shattered almost instantly, Cole quickly snapping back to cover his face before the shards settled and he was able to crawl out.

“Ninja, is everyone okay?”

Silence.

Grunting, he slid into an alleyway nearby, hunkering down there to make sure he wasn’t risking being in the open should any roaming Shark Army generals find him. “Kai, Zane, Nya, Jay, Lloyd? _Anyone?_ ”

Static once more.

He huffed, giving up on the comm link before he spent a moment there, doing a quick once-over on himself to make sure he wasn’t badly injured. Upon only finding a few scrapes and bruises, he hauled himself back to his feet and began dragging himself in the direction he last saw the other two ground mechs.

Stumbling through the city, Cole wove around the generals that were no doubt looking for him and ducking around the corner, he spotted a trail of scrap that had definitely been pulled from the Fire Mech. Quickly, he ran to follow it, finding the mech crushed up against what looked to be an apartment complex.

Inside, Kai was quickly fumbling to try and get the cockpit open. Fear filled every action he made, pure panic settled over him as he had to _get out_ , had to get this thing open. Every second he spent was a second closer towards the potential catastrophic explosion that this machine harbored.

“Kai! Kai, are you okay?!”

The fire ninja’s attention snapped up and there was a hint of relief that crossed his expression that was otherwise pure terror. “Help me get out of this thing! It’s jammed!”

Cole, doing what Cole does best, readied his hammer. “Watch out.” With a good, solid whack, the latch broke open and allowed Kai to pry open the canopy and crawl out.

Clearly, in a frenzy, Kai grabbed the earth ninja’s arm and quickly ushered him away, ducking behind one of the larger buildings in the area. “Cole, holy shit… Did you find anyone else?”

“No, no. I just got free myself. Did you see what direction Zane went?”

“I… I don’t know. I think? Just… shit, dude, he’s… He’s connected to that thing. You don’t think…”

“...No. No! Listen. We’ll find him, okay? He can’t be that far.”

Cole put his hands firmly on the other’s shoulders, giving Kai a moment to just breathe and gather himself. “We’ll find him. We’ll find all of them, it’s okay, Kai.”

“Okay… Okay. Let’s go. I think… I think I saw that thing bat the Ice Tank over this way,” He lifted a hand to motion in that direction and Cole nodded before they started their search.

Meanwhile, Zane struggled under the weight of the collapsed Ice Tank. The engines were torn to shreds and the coolant tanks had been punctured, that much he knew for sure. He couldn’t even begin to gauge the rest of the damage that had been done. All he knew is that it was bad. _Very_ bad.

Coolant began to pool at the base of the cockpit, almost immediately starting to send frost creeping up the glass bottom. His hands began to fumble at the canopy glass, attempting to pry it open, but to no avail. The latch had been broken and bent closed as well, making the emergency release useless. The android tried to sit up more, tried to pull his legs out from under the collapsed dashboard, but it was then the most searing pain he’d ever felt pulsated through his sensors and he collapsed back down with a yelp.

Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes and he bit his lip trying to bear the pain, hands pressed under the dashboard to try and lift it off of himself. He was able to slide one leg free, but the other was firmly crunched beneath the front end of the tank. Fluorescent blue began to stain the white of his pant leg, his own coolant now oozing into the bottom and mingling with what was leaking from the tank itself.

Everything he tried hurt like hell. Trying to sit up pulled his leg, trying to pry the dashboard up was arduous and ultimately useless, same with trying to open the canopy. Zane reached back to touch the cabling wired into his spine from the Ice Tank. Since the engine was off and the control panel destroyed, there was no way to safely disengage them. Pulling on it, he howled, tears beginning to stream down his cheeks as he instantly gave up on that as well.

He knew the comms were down. He wasn’t getting anything in or out.

So he was stuck here. Trapped in a rapidly freezing metal tomb.

Running the calculations, Zane deduced that with the temperature dropping and the current rate he was losing coolant, it wouldn’t be long before his systems shut down. Lifting his hands, he fumbled with his cowl, pulling it off and wiping his eyes with the back of a gloved hand as he tried desperately to stop crying. The least he could do was try to stop his own coolant from leaking, or at least slow it, so taking the headband from his cowl, he wrapped it around his thigh and tied it tight, using it as a makeshift tourniquet.

Zane couldn’t stop himself from shaking, though. There was no way for him to reach the others. He curled up as best he could, trying not to pull on his leg or get any of himself in the coolant pooling beneath him and all that was left to do was wait. Wait and hope that the other ninja were okay and would find him there.

Walking through the city was never more terrifying. Between the threat of the giant feline monster pulling everything apart and the generals hunting them down that would no doubt win, today was a bad day to be a ninja.

All around them were strewn pieces of debris, from Shark Army vehicles to chunks of sidewalk, to scattered remains of their own mechs, it looked like the biggest earthquake in history hit the city and was still raging in the distance.

The earth and fire ninja soon stopped, sharing a look with each other as they felt a subtle drop in temperature. Creeping around, their backs pressed to the building, they made sure there wasn’t any Shark Army in the area before breaking into a sprint.

Scattered before them was the crushed remains of the Ice Tank, where Kai rushed to the cockpit and placed his hands on the glass that had a thick layer of frost forming on it. Focusing his powers, he heated his palms and the frost began to melt, revealing the crumpled form of Zane still inside, curled up with frost and ice clinging to him.

“Cole! He’s still in here! Help me get it open!”

Without hesitation, Cole rushed to the aid of his friend, fingers digging into the seam where overhead canopy glass met the body of the tank. Heaving, he was able to bend the broken hinge open enough to pry the whole thing off, tossing it to the wayside.

Zane blinked, looking blearily up at the other two, his vision slightly hazy and response times slowed. Kai leaned down into the tank, wrapping his arms under the android’s and attempting to lift him. Unfortunately, that didn’t go quite as planned, as Zane yelped and tried to pull away, hand flying to the leg that was still crushed under the dashboard.

Kai’s gaze snapped up and Cole made a slightly dismissive motion. “I got this. I’ll lift and you pull.”

It was sort of awkward, though, Cole having to orient himself to get a good grip on the console while also avoiding the now lake of coolant that was filling the inside. Steeling himself, though, the earth ninja gave yet another heave, grunting as he pulled with all his might to force the metal of the tank to give way.

Finally, it began to creak, bending back up enough to allow Kai to pull Zane free. The android, nearly frozen solid, clung to Kai for dear life, burying his face into his chest as he fought back tears. The fire ninja pulled him up a bit, but at that, there was another problem. He was still hooked into the tank.

Kai bit his lip, still holding onto the other tight, before lifting a hand back to pull one of his swords from his back.

“I’m really sorry about this, buddy.” Without waiting, though, he swiped down harshly, slashing the cables that wired him directly into the Ice Tank.

Zane gasped, his body tensing and shaking as the connection was severed, but at the very least he was able to be pulled free from the tank and lowered onto the street.

Cole hopped down with them, standing on the side of the ice ninja’s ruined leg to help prop him up.

“Zane? Zane, are you okay? Speak to us, man.” Kai gripped the nindroid’s hand in both of his, heating them up again as he looked the other over.

There was something of a strained mechanical noise that came from him, before he spoke, though. His voice sounded as if it had been pitched down and slowed slightly. “I have… seen… better days.”

“I can tell, haha. Just… stay with us, alright? We’ll get you to the hangar and get you fixed up.”

* * *

Back at the hangar, Jay paced back and forth nervously, wringing his hands together before shaking them out, trying to get ahold of himself. He was acutely aware of the amount of time that had passed, glancing over at the remarkably still functioning clock that had fallen every five seconds.

“It’s okay, Jay. They’re okay. You’re okay, right? So why wouldn’t they be? See? Yeah. They gotta be okay. They’ll come here and it’ll be okay.” A few deep breaths, the lightning ninja lifting his hands to rub at his eyes, slightly surprised when he found tears springing up there.

“Hold it together! Any minute now and they’ll– they’ll–” His whole body felt tense, his chest clenching up, and he began to start physically curling in on himself.

It was then there was a clattering sound and Jay’s attention was instantly snapped to it. It was Nya who came stumbling in, tripping over some of the debris and things that had been knocked over a bit.

“Nya! You’re okay!” The lightning ninja quickly ran to the other, checking over her. “I… I mean, _are_ you okay? Are you hurt?”

Nya gave a slight snort and a bit of a dismissive gesture. “I’m a little banged up, but it’s nothin’ I can’t handle.” She sauntered past Jay, gripping her side, and that’s when he saw that she was bleeding.

“Nya, you’re–”

“I said I can handle it. It’s not that deep, relax.”

“O-okay. Alright… Did you see any of the others? All I saw was–”

“...I didn't, no.”

“B-but… they’ll just come back here, right? I mean you did, so– so–”

“Jay, breathe. If we made it, they did, too. They had to have.”

“Right… Right, yeah.”

They weren’t entirely sure how long they waited. Nya had forced Jay to focus on picking up some of the stuff that had been overturned and destroyed in the attack, while she busied herself rummaging through the first aid kit while sitting on the couch. She slid her arm out from her gi, exposing her side and allowing her to properly dress her wound.

“Are you sure you don’t–”

“I got it.” Nya cut off Jay, hissing as she mopped up the blood around the wound. She bit her lip against the sting, holding the cloth there for a moment as she pulled out a square of gauze and placed that over the wound instead. Tearing off strips of surgical tape with her teeth, she fasted the gauze square down firmly, making sure there was still pressure on it.

She leaned back, letting out a breath slowly, before looking up as something else sounded outside.

“Come on, come on! Don’t shut down on us!”

“Kai?” Jay pricked up, putting down whatever he was tending to and moving towards the entrance.

What turned the corner was not entirely what he was expecting and was both pleasant and distressing. Cole had Zane in his arms, but the android’s left leg was completely mangled. Cole was desperately trying to avoid getting coolant on himself and Kai had both his hands on Zane, presumably trying to keep him warm.

“Oh, my Gods! What happened to Zane?!” Jay was quick to shuffle closer, his outburst also drawing the attention of Nya, who rushed over.

“No time to explain,” Kai blurted, helping Cole get the nindroid inside and situated on one of the chairs there, propping his mangled leg up on a box. “Jay, can you fix it?”

“Oh, man… Oh… This is _nooot_ good, I–”

“Jay!” Cole snapped, “Can you fix it?”

“I– I can patch it, just… Kai, keep the heat on him, make sure he doesn’t try to power down or something. I just… I think he’s in some kind of shock. Wh-whatever that means for a robot.”

Jay pulled up another box, shuffling around the hangar and yanking one of the rolling tool boxes out and towards where the ice ninja was situated. He sat down on the other box, putting on a fairly thick pair of gloves and taking a pair of scissors out to cut off the fabric of Zane’s pants that was getting in the way. He grabbed the soldering iron next, biting his lip as he waited for it heat up and leaning in to inspect the wound a bit closer.

Kai watched with bated breath, heated fingers running placatingly through the delirious nindroid’s snow white hair. He kept himself pressed to the other, close to his warmth, a few sparks skipping off his fingers as he pressed his other hand to Zane’s chest, trying to melt the frost that was still clinging to his form.

“I… I don’t know but… You guys might want to look away for this. I don’t know if Zane can feel this or not…”

The soldering iron pressed down on the exposed and sliced coolant tubing and Zane’s body tensed, his face scrunching in pain.

“Okay, he can feel it!” He pulled the tool back, before quickly moving in to press the tubing with his fingertips and close it off. “ _Oooohh_ boy, okay.”

“Jay, relax. We don’t need you crying into Zane’s circuits.” Kai mumbled, still trying to get rid of the ice that was gathering on the nindroid’s clothes and skin.

Steeling himself, the lightning ninja went back in, finding all of the severed coolant tubes and trying to melt them closed. Putting the soldering iron back, shaky hands lifted, untying the coolant-soaked tourniquet Zane had fashioned beforehand, cringing in anticipation. When all seemed well and Zane didn’t look like he was bleeding anymore, he eased, letting out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

“Okay… Okay! Well, he’s not bleeding, so that’s good.”

“Is that all you can do?” Kai asked.

“K… Kinda, yeah. I don’t really have the equipment to fix this kinda thing. He really needs to go back to Julien.”

“What about the link?”

“The– Kai, holy shit, did you cut him out?” Jay moved quickly, shifting around to Zane’s back, where, sure enough, the connection cables were still firmly rooted in his spine.

“What else was I supposed to do!”

“I… Oh, boy. I can probably get them out? It just… I might hurt him. Potentially a lot.”

“Do… do what… you must…” The creaky voice of the ice ninja was finally heard and everyone seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

“Okay. I-if you say so, buddy.” Pulling his gloves off, Jay situated himself behind Zane. He rubbed his hands together, blue sparks skipping off of his hands before he firmly gripped one of the cables embedded in Zane’s back. “Don’t flinch.” Then focusing, his shoulders tensed as he sent a current through the wire from his body, causing the android to jump and let out a sharp, pained noise. The jolt activated the connector, though, allowing him to pull it out without having to force it free, risking hurting Zane even more.

Knowing now that it worked without much of a hitch, Jay was more confident in removing the other five, tossing each to the side uselessly.

“Well, that could’ve gone way worse. How are you doing, Zane?” Jay leaned around, fitting his hands together as he met the gaze of the still slightly dazed ninja.

“Better. I… Believe I am normalizing, yes.”

“Good! Good. I was… kind of scared for a minute, because I didn’t know what getting cut off from the Ice Tank like that would do to you. But! It seems like you’re… well, not dead. So… small victories.”

“Well, this is nice,” Kai started. “I’m glad _we’re_ not dead, but… Did any of you see Lloyd?”

A hush fell over the room.

“Last I heard over the comms, he was with Garmadon on top of Ninjago Tower,” Nya said.

“You don’t think he’s still there?”

“I mean, I hope not. It’s just he’s probably in that vicinity. If his mech got destroyed, too, he’s probably not far.”

“We have to go get him.”

“Kai, I would like to respectfully disagree. We are, for lack of a better word, quite frazzled,” Zane pointed out. “The choice to leave here and look for Lloyd, while admirable, is reckless, as some of us would not be able to join. Nya and I have both been injured.”

“Zane!” Nya snapped.

“Wait, sis, you got hurt?”

“It’s nothing, dude. I handled it. It wasn’t that bad.”

“You would still say that even if your arm got lopped off.”

“Damn right I would!”

“ _Listen!_ My sensors indicate there is someone else here, by the docks!” Zane paused, head tilting slightly to one side, processing. “I believe it is Lloyd!”

There was little to no time before Kai was out the door, the rest of them following suit. With Cole carrying Zane, of course.

* * *

 

Lloyd had stumbled through the ruined city, fighting back tears, averting his gaze from the wreckage of his friends’ mechs. He couldn’t help it any longer, though, the sight of the mechs with no one in them making him fear the worst and he started to properly cry as he wove his way towards the docks.

His last hope was the hangar or the Bounty and– 

Lloyd crested a mound of debris and when he did, his heart sunk. The Bounty was nowhere in sight, scattered bits of wood and other chunks that could’ve conceivably have belonged to it floating in the water.

All at once it felt like everything was crumbling inside of him. Slowly, he slid to his knees on the dock, letting the tears wash over him as he buried his face in his hands. This was all his fault. All of it. Everything was destroyed and it was all because he had to use that stupid weapon.

“Lloyd! Lloyd is that you?”

Quickly, he snapped up, wiping his eyes as fast as he could on his sleeves. “Guys?”

The other five ninja came into view, each of them grinning at the sight of their friend. Kai was quick to come forward, though, wrapping his arms around Lloyd and squeezing him.

“Guys! You’re alive!” Lloyd exclaimed, returning Kai’s embrace.

“We could say the same to you! We were so worried. Last we heard you were with Garmadon,” Kai said before he finally let go of the younger ninja.

“And Master Wu?” Zane spoke from his position in Cole’s arms. “Now that all of us have been located, finding him would be the next logical step.”

“Wait, you guys… aren’t mad at me?”

“Why would we be mad, dude?” Cole spoke, shifting the nindroid in his grasp.

“I mean, I… I did this. I used the Ultimate Weapon. I put everyone in danger. The mechs are totaled and, and– What happened to Zane?”

The earth ninja moved aside slightly, allowing Lloyd to get a good look at the mangled nature of Zane’s leg. “There is no worry about my physical condition. I am a nindroid, after all. My body is able to be repaired.”

Lloyd put his face in his hands, shoulders pulling. “That’s not the point, Zane. You could’ve all had much worse happen. And Master Wu, he’s… He’s gone now…”

Silence hung between them all, backed by the distant sounds of the beast’s rampage and the lapping of the water against the docks. That was, until–

“Hello, students.” Each of them jumped at the voice, whipping around to find none other than Master Wu stood there.

“Master Wu!” They exclaimed in unison.

“Master Wu, you’re okay!” Lloyd stepped forwards towards him at that, though the other ninja seemed to slip into an ever so slightly defensive stance.

“Of course I’m okay,” Wu spoke. “I’m a ninja master. If I was going to die, it would be to teach you a lesson.” He paused, though, taking a deep breath as he looked down for a moment. “Lloyd, the Ultimate Weapon was not a laser cannon. It was a beacon. You have awakened Meowthra.”

“ _Meowthra_ ?” they asked in unison.

“Yes, Meowthra. The Six-Toed Beast from regions beyond. You lit the way for her to come here and now her reign of terror will stretch on and on until all of Ninjago is destroyed.”

Lloyd felt his heart sink. This was all his fault; if he had just listened to Master Wu, instead of trying to go on his own personal crusade, if he had helped his friends, maybe they could’ve beat Garmadon instead of this. “Master Wu… I’m so sorry… Is there anything we can do?”

Wu stroked his beard thoughtfully, humming as he nodded. “There's only one hope, now. One thing that can drive Meowthra away.”

His gaze snapped up before it shifted between the other ninja, each of whom seemed equally puzzled and intrigued. “What is it?”

“The Ultimate Ultimate Weapon.”

“The… The Ultimate _Ultimate_ Weapon?” The green ninja didn’t seem entirely convinced and neither did the others, but he continued. “Okay, so… barring that this thing is real, where is it? How do we get it?”

“It is on the other side of the island, hidden where only a true ninja master can find it. You must follow the right path. Otherwise, you will end up trapped in the deadly jungle, unable to cross the bridge, and mired in the deep and endless canyon. And if you're still alive, you'll be crushed by the temple it lies in, for its foundations are too unstable to be disturbed. It's a journey many have tried… and none have returned.”

“That… _does_ sound difficult–”

“And terrifying.” Jay introjected.

“But you know what? We're ready.”

“No, you're not. Lloyd, you have already done enough and it will take great patience, courage, and hard work. All the skills of a true ninja master. And you are _not_ ninja masters. So, I will make this journey on my own.” Wu’s shoulders fell, a slow breath leaving him as he turned to leave.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Kai jumped forwards. “This wasn’t Lloyd’s fault, he didn’t know!”

“Yeah!” The other five said in unison.

“Master Wu, wait! Hold on a second, please.” Lloyd rushed forwards after their master, a slight panic rising. “Master Wu, I know I let Ninjago down–”

“No, you didn’t!” Jay cut in, shuffling forwards. “ _We_ did. We all want to make this right.”

The younger ninja nudged Jay aside a bit, coming forwards once more as Wu was still making his move to leave. “Please, Master Wu, you can't do this alone. I know we're not ninja masters yet, but you said it yourself. It's important to look at things differently. Is there anything I can do to change your point of view?” He spoke slower now, lifting a hand to place it on his uncle’s shoulder as Wu stopped and turned slightly.

Wu lifted the hand not placed on his staff, running it through his beard in thought. “Hmm. Students, are you willing to put forth your best effort, despite the odds?”

Each of them looked at each other, before back to their master, giving a confident nod.

“Good. We leave at dawn. Ninja, go home and prepare yourselves. Lloyd, a word.”

As Wu turned, Lloyd felt himself shrink down. His eyes fell to the city that was in chaos, to Ninjago Tower where his father stood proud, to the massive paw that swung down and toppled buildings. It was then, though, he felt a hand on his shoulder and looked back. Nya stood there, a soft smile on her face and looking to the others, they all seemed to share the same expression.

Lloyd sighed low, turning his gaze forwards again and shrugging Nya’s hand from his shoulder.

“You heard him. Do what you need to.”

The others dispersed, each going their respective ways. As soon as they were out of earshot, Wu turned back to his nephew, stepping closer.

“Lloyd, it is an arduous journey ahead. Are you sure you are prepared?”

“What? Of course, I’m prepared. I just said I was.”

“I feel a great conflict within you. Using the Ultimate Weapon despite my warnings was selfish and irresponsible and I fear for the direction your heart will sway.”

Lloyd raised an eyebrow, indicating his confusion. “A… conflict? Uncle Wu, I–”

“Listen to me, Lloyd. There are many things in this world that may not come to you instantly. Battles are not always won by who has the most firepower. They rely on who has the greatest heart and the sharpest mind. You are undisciplined in that, thinking you can solve all your problems by blowing them up.” Wu lifted his staff and hit it on the ground for emphasis.

The green ninja paused, looking down for a moment as he thought over that.

“Sound familiar?” His uncle spoke again.

Almost instantly, Lloyd’s gaze snapped back up. “You… You think I’m going to be like Garmadon.”

“The future is uncertain. Only you can decide what it will hold.”

“No… no. You think I’m going to turn out to be evil. You don’t have any faith in me at all, do you?”

There’s a heavy pause, where Wu’s gaze is downturned before he spoke again. “I do not know what I think. I believe that if left unchecked, you will find yourself on a side you didn’t want to be on.”

“Uncle Wu, I don’t even have any powers, not like they do! What can I even do? You still won’t even tell me that!” Lloyd pulled in a deep breath, before doing a quick glance over his uncle. “And now I think I know why.”

“That’s enough!” Wu banged his staff once more. “Go home, Lloyd. If you still want to fix your mistake with the others, get ready. I will leave without you if I have to.”

The youngest of the ninja pressed his lips together forcing back the need to retort. “Yes, sensei.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING THIS CHAPTER FOR THEMES OF ABUSE. Please be careful reading if you are sensitive to that kind of content.

**“L** eave me here, leave me here.”

“But Zane–”

“No, he… I can’t be seen with you. Not like this. I do not believe Julien is aware you know what I am. If so, I would prefer to keep it that way.”

Cole gave a soft huff, before gently setting Zane down on his feet. The android winced, wobbling slightly, but was able to keep himself steady. “If you say so, buddy…”

“I… apologize, Cole. And thank you. I will be alright, I promise.”

The earth ninja turned to leave and Zane’s face fell as soon as he did. Once the other was out of sight, he was left to himself to hobble into the apartment building.

A low fear struck the nindroid as he approached the door to his apartment, however, and he paused. He was lucky in that he was able to change out of his ninja garb before leaving and that his pants covered the wound in his leg, but he didn’t expect this to go exactly smoothly. He fumbled with the keys a little, before unlocking the door and stepping inside, entirely expecting his father to be waiting for him there.

As if on cue, Dr. Julien was instantly on him.

“Where have you been, Zane? First Garmadon and now this monster!”

“I apologize, father. I was… caught. It was not my intention to leave you in the dark. I sincerely apologize.”

“Apologies aren’t going to fix that leg!” Zane recoiled, body tensing as Julien struck the side of his face with the palm of his hand. Despite his best efforts, of course, he was still visibly limping. “Did you hit your head, too? Are you malfunctioning? Need I remind you, you’re _supposed_ to be hidden. That certainly doesn’t do you any favors, boy.”

“You’re right. As I said, it was not my intention. We were blindsided by that beast. I am glad that you are okay, though, and this part of the city seems relatively unharmed.”

Dr. Julien paused, heaving out a low breath as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Come here, Zane. Come here. Let me get a look at you.”

The two moved further into the apartment, into the living room area and sat the android down on the couch while Julien left to rummage for parts.

“Zane?” A small voice was heard from the other side of the room and Zane looked up to a pair of yellow eyes peeking out from around the door to his bedroom. “Zane, are you okay?” The younger android shuffled a bit into view, poking out more from the door, but never leaving it.

“I am alright, yes!” The ice ninja chirped back. “I was injured, but it’s nothing serious.”

“Echo!”

The smaller of the two flinched, gripping the doorframe a bit tighter. “Yes, dad?”

“Stay in your room! You don’t need to hang around while I fix your brother!”

“Sorry, dad.” Echo’s voice fell and he slipped back into their room quietly, closing the door behind him.

Zane let out a slow breath, lifting both his hands to rub his face. It wasn’t long before Julien came back into the room, wheeling in boxes of spare parts and tools.

“Let me see it, boy.”

Biting his lip, the ice ninja prepared for the worst as he lifted his leg to place it on the coffee table, rolling up his pant leg to reveal the extent of the damage. Now that all of the coolant had been mopped off, it didn’t look nearly as bad, but it was still bad enough to get a rise out of Julien.

“ _That’s_ what you classify as nothing serious? Maybe you are malfunctioning!”

“Please, I can run my own diagnostics. I promise I am not.”

“What the hell happened to you?”

Zane paused, looking down at the wound as his father pulled up a stool and began picking it apart, pulling out the damaged wires and components. He had about five seconds to formulate a way to say this as gingerly as possible, any longer and the situation would’ve gotten exponentially worse.

“As I said, we were blindsided by that monster. My leg was crushed under rubble. I was able to free myself and cauterize the coolant tubes that were leaking. I changed back at school so I could hide it. I did what I could. I promise no one saw me.”

The wordlessness of his father almost scared him more than the scathing remarks. He hoped that meant it was convincing enough because the two didn’t breathe a word to each other for a period of time Zane was less than comfortable with.

The lingering silence is broken only by Julien giving a rough thump to Zane’s newly repaired leg, causing the android to wince. “There. That should do it. Now go to your room. I don’t want to see your face for the rest of the night.”

“Yes, father,” Zane replied flatly. He rolled his pant leg back down, before standing up and steadying himself on his new leg and making his way with his backpack to the room that he and Echo shared.

The slightly smaller, yellow-eyed android sat cross-legged in the corner of the room, before him a display of toys, most of which Zane had brought back for him. In Echo’s lap sat one of his sketchbooks, his shaky metal fingers scratching a short pencil across the page as he tried to recreate the scene of plastic dinosaurs and stuffed animals. Upon hearing the door open, he jumped slightly but visibly eased upon seeing it was his older brother.

“Oh! Hey, hey, Zane. You okay now?” He asked, putting his pencil down.

“I am, yes. The repair wasn’t as long as I was fearing.” Zane made his way in further, lifting a hand as his mechanical falcon squawked from his perch on the other side of the room before flying over and landing on his arm. The android smiled, lifting his opposite hand to stroke the bird under its chin. “And I am glad to see you as well, Apollo.”

The bird chittered, ruffling its faux feathers, before Zane moved and sat down heavily in the swivel chair next to the small desk that was pushed up against the far wall. Apollo quickly hopped down onto the desk, sitting down and waiting for Zane to pet him some more.

“Good, good! I was kinda scared. So was Apollo. It looked kinda pretty bad, uh… Did you get hurt doin’ ninja stuff?”

The older nindroid turned rather sharply, pressing a finger to his lips and indicating to his brother to keep his voice down, lest the sound travel through the paper thin walls and the other residents overhear.

Echo quickly clapped his hands over his mouth, eyes going wide as he whispered back. “Sorry! Sorry… Did you get hurt doin’ ninja stuff?”

Zane lowered his voice in kind. “I did. We were attempting to ward off Garmadon, and we were being overrun, then that beast attacked us! We almost won, but it was too much for us, and we had to retreat.”

“Sounds really scary! Were you scared?”

He nodded. “I was. But I made it, and that’s what matters.”

“Hm. I’m glad you okay. That’s good.”

“I agree. I fear for what may have happened otherwise. However, that is not important. I’m glad to see that you’re okay as well, Echo.”

Echo wiggled a bit, situating himself again where he was sitting as he placed a shaky hand back to the paper across his lap and began drawing again. “Yeah. Dad didn’t let me leave our room. It was really scary! All I saw was somethin’ real big! I tried to draw it, but it moved too fast so it doesn’t look too good.”

“Oh?” Zane stood up and made his way over to where his brother was sitting, careful not to disturb the scene that was so carefully arranged before him and sat down beside him. Apollo gave a slight squawk in protest, flapping his way back over to his perch in the meantime. “May I see?”

“Sure!” Gleefully, the younger boy sat his pencil down, lifting up his sketchbook and leafing through the pages. He came to a rather large, sketchy drawing that spanned the whole page. The creature that sprawled across it towered over the amorphous rectangles that Zane supposed was intended to be the skyline, and it had one large paw lifted to strike down the building in front of it. Its shape was vaguely feline, however, it was twisted and monstrous, with enormous fangs lining its mouth and what looked to be multiple eyes.

“Her name is Meowthra,” Zane stated.

“It’s a _girl_ monster?”

The ice ninja nodded. “Indeed. She’s known as the Six-Toed Beast from regions beyond. Tomorrow, the ninja and I will leave to find the Ultimate Ultimate Weapon, and we’re going to stop her.”

“I know you can do it! You’re the coolest, Zane. Just…” Echo paused, looking down for a moment. “Just be safe, okay?”

Zane lifted a hand, placing it on his brother’s shoulder. “I will.”

* * *

He felt bad, really. Leaving Zane on his own. Cole dug his hands into his pockets, pulling in his shoulders as he started his walk back to his own apartment.

The way was somewhat safe for now, as Meowthra seemed to have retreated, if only momentarily. He supposed he should feel lucky for that and that his apartment building was unharmed, but at the moment, he didn’t exactly feel it. After everything, he’d just be coming home to the same old song and dance his father tried to put on, and Cole didn’t even know where to begin to try and formulate some sort of alibi this time.

Not wanting to prolong whatever was coming to him, the earth ninja jammed his key into the door and twisted, throwing it open. Once inside, Cole crouched down to pull off his boots, then made his way further in, where his father was sitting on the couch with the news channel on.

“Hey, dad. I’m home,” he said, somewhat unenthusiastically.

Almost immediately, Lou was on his feet. “Where were you? Were you with those… _hooligans_ again? Causing a ruckus in the middle of all this?”

Cole had to keep himself from cringing. “No, dad. I was _avoiding_ getting eaten by a giant monster. And they’re my friends, not just ‘hooligans.’” He made air quotes with his fingers to accentuate the absurdity of the statement.

His father snorted, turning back to the television where the reporter was droning on about something to do with Meowthra. “I tell you, boy. This city is bad news, just like them. Garmadon was bad enough. Won’t be long before the whole place is up in flames, and we’re definitely not gonna be around to see it.”

“Yeah, I… I sure hope the ninja can get us out of this one.”

Sitting back down, Lou almost laughed at that. “Yeah, we’ll see. What a load of good they’ve done for us so far.”

Cole bit his tongue, fists clenching at his sides before he turned and slipped into his room, to the tune of the news reporter in the background.

_“There are many questions regarding today’s series of tragic events, but the biggest question of them all is: Where are the ninja?”_

* * *

“Ugh, this place is a mess!” Nya huffed, crossing her arms as she looked over the frazzled state of the blacksmith shop.

Kai kicked a fallen helmet out of his way, frowning at the chaos before him. “You’re tellin’ me.”

“First Garmadon, then that stupid creature nearly kills us all, and now the shop! _Augh!_ I could just–” The water ninja grasped at her hair, letting out a frustrated groan.

Shrugging, Kai started shifting some of the junk strewn on the floor into a pile. “Well, it could be worse. Like, y’know, completely flattened, worse,” he said, attempting to placate his sister. “Then what?”

Nya sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You’re right, just… Whatever, let’s just clean up. It’s not that bad.”

The two siblings got to work, organizing supplies where they go and helping each other heft shelves back into place that had fallen. It looked as if an earthquake just rattled the place a bit, so overall the damage wasn’t too extensive. A few broken windows, maybe a small hole in the roof where a support got shook a tiny bit loose, some patch jobs in the wall where a shelf or two got torn off, nothing they couldn’t repair themselves.

Kai broke the silence as he was picking up shards of glass from a window that had been broken. “But really… then what?”

“You lost me, bro.”

He turned a shard over in his hand, contemplating it. “Like, if we came back and Meowthra did destroy the shop. What would we do?”

Nya thought for a moment, pausing as she started to reach to hang one of the swords back up. “I… I guess we stay on the Bounty?”

Kai made a sour face. “ _Hmph._ I don’t see why we aren’t already staying there. Considering the old man’s supposed to be our guardian and all.”

The water ninja wiped down the blade with a cloth after it was placed back on the rack, and she gave a slight snort. “What? You’d rather live on that hunk of junk than here?”

“No! I–” her brother grumbled, dumping the shards into the trash. “I mean, Wu doesn’t really do much… guardian-ing, y’know? All he really does is pay for our shit and check in on us when he bothers to remember we exist outside ninja stuff. You’re the one that basically runs this place, he just sits around doing his whatever, like… inner peace tranquility ninja junk. It’s stupid.”

Nya’s face grew red, her shoulders pulling as she turned harshly to face the other. “Kai, you’re _lucky_ he pays for our stuff! Be grateful for once in your goddamn miserable life. We can barely scrape by on our own, if it wasn’t for Wu, there’d be nobody to pay for your stupid meds. _Then what?_ ” she spoke the last question in a slightly sarcastic tone, quirking a brow.

“ _Shut up, Nya!_ ” the fire ninja snapped, eyes flaring as heat started to wick off of him, though it just as quickly fizzled out. He turned, hiding his face from her view. “Just… shut up.”

Nya’s expression changed, falling to concern from her previous smugness. She got down off the stepstool and made her way over to where her brother had returned to sweeping up the glass. “I… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” she said, much quieter this time. She reached out carefully, putting a hand on the other’s shoulder, and he turned with a slow breath.

Kai moved a bit closer, resting his head on his sister’s shoulder as her arm moved to hook around his waist. “I’m just… tired. I’m so tired, sis.”

“I know,” she muttered, “Me too… But, c’mon. Let’s finish cleaning up around here. Relax a little.”

“Yeah…”

They separated from each other after a moment, the air going still as they slipped into a comfortable silence. Maybe that was all there was to say on the matter, maybe not. It would most likely come up again later, but for now, they were content to finish cleaning up and patching their home, hoping it wasn’t in vain.

* * *

The way home for Lloyd was mostly time spent ruminating on the words of his uncle. _I fear for the direction your heart will sway._ As if he was going to be evil, too. As if Wu wasn’t the one who had trained them all these years to try and stop the thing he apparently was afraid Lloyd would become. He wasn’t. He knew he wasn’t. Wu didn’t know what he did in his daily life,  he didn’t help him with anything besides training. As if he had a place to tell him what he would be.

Through the door of his apartment, he could hear Koko on the phone and he hesitated.

“Yes, yes, I know what you said. It doesn’t matter! He’s still my son, you should understand that. I just need to know if you’ve seen him, that’s all I ask–”

Lloyd gritted his teeth and stepped through the door. “Hey, mom.”

Koko turned to the door and her face lit up. “Lloyd? Lloyd! Yes, he’s okay, he just walked in. Thank you, bye!” She quickly fumbled to hang up, before her arms were immediately around Lloyd and she was peppering his face with kisses. “Oh, thank the Gods you’re okay. I was so worried!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay, mom. Thank you…” The green ninja gave a slight laugh, lifting a hand to usher his mother back a bit.

“What happened out there? Is everyone alright?”

He thinks back to the others looking at him fearfully, to Zane in Cole’s arms, to Nya with her hand pressed to her side, to the wreckages of all the mechs. Despite that, he smiles. “Everything’s alright, yeah. No one got hurt. There was just that… that monster and we had to take cover, and… dad. I am so, so sorry for worrying you, I know I should’ve called, it’s just–”

Koko lifted her hands, placing them on either of Lloyd’s shoulders. “It’s okay, sweetie. It means more to me that you’re alright.”

“Thanks, mom. I love you.”

“I love you too, sweetie. Now, go relax. I’ll get you something to eat, you must be starving!” She stepped back, going over to the fridge and looking over its contents. “How do dumplings sound, huh?”

He bit back the urge to tell her he wasn’t hungry. He wasn’t, not really, but maybe it would at least make him feel a bit better. “Yeah, sounds great. I’ll, uh… I’ll be in my room.”

He did so silently, closing the door and not even bothering to turn on the light as he closed the door and sunk into his bed. He let out a long, low, breath, trying to get his body to unwind amidst the muffled sounds of his mother in the kitchen and faint mumbling of the television.

Lloyd wasn’t sure exactly how long he was there for, staring up at the ceiling, replaying what Master Wu had said to him over and over. He really was the bad guy, wasn’t he? No matter what he did, Garmadon still came back, time and time again, and even when he _thought_ he was doing the right thing and when he _thought_ he was going to win, finally, it still blew up in his face. This time it blew up even more spectacularly than ever. Ninjago City was under a dire threat, and it was _his_ fault.

“ _Lloyd~!_ Dinner’s ready!” he heard from the other room.

He almost didn’t want to get up, almost wanted to just stay laying there until he just decayed into the sheets, but he pulled himself up and trudged out, sitting down at the table. Every part of him rejected it, his mood having gone so far south it disappeared beyond the horizon line, but he looked to his mother beaming at him and smiled back. “It looks great, thank you.”

Koko sat down across from him as he started eating half-heartedly, nursing a cup of coffee as her gaze kept flickering to the TV across the way, the reporter on screen mumbling about the Meowthra attack.

The relative silence between was broken as Lloyd cleared his throat. “Hey, uh… hey mom?”

She looked at him, giving a slight tilt of her head quizzically. “What is it?”

Lloyd shifted in his seat, placing his chopsticks down. “Have you ever… I guess, like, thought you were one thing, and you were one-hundred percent, completely sure you were that one thing, but… now you’re not sure?”

“Oh, of course!” Koko smiled and waved a hand slightly, though not dismissively. “People change, Lloyd. I used to be so firm in the fact that I loved your father, but I realized later that I don’t even really like men all that much in general. It’s completely natural to question parts of yourself, and it can be stressful, but it’s part of figuring out who you are as a person.”

“I mean, more like,” Lloyd sat back a bit and made a gesture with both his hands, moving them apart to indicate something big, “On a bigger scale than something like who or what you like. I just… I want to be myself, I want to be a good person, because everyone expects me to be otherwise because of dad and I want to prove them wrong, but it’s gone too far. I’m tired of having all the kids at school treat us like garbage, I’m tired of my friends having to take that kind of hit because of me. It’s exhausting, and I don’t want to do it anymore.”

The redhead pursed her lips, reaching across the table as her son slumped forward onto it to place her hand against his forearm. “Honey, I want you to be whatever makes you feel like the most comfortable version of you. Every adult out there always says some garbage about ‘just ignore them, don’t give them the satisfaction,’ but that doesn’t ever really help. It’s okay to stand up for yourself, you don’t have to sit there and take it if you feel like you can’t anymore. There are ways to do it without escalating the situation.”

She leaned back again, picking up her mug and taking a sip. “Just know that no matter what, as long as you feel like you’re doing what you need to do to better yourself, I support you. You’ve done nothing wrong, it’s their fault they can’t see how wonderful you are.”

Lloyd looked down at his plate again, nodding slowly as he finished the last few bites of his dumplings. Maybe they did make him feel a bit better, at least a little bit, but his mind was still conflicted. “Thank you… again, mom,” he said, slowly standing up and taking his plate to the sink.

“Of course. I’m here for you, sweetie. Just let me know if you need anything else,” she smiled at him, and despite it all, it was contagious.

“I’m good for now, thanks. I’m, uh… I’m just going to go to bed,” the young boy finished rinsing his dishes, putting them on the rack before walking back to his room. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Lloyd. I love you.”

“Love you too.” And with that, his door closed, and he sat down on the edge of his bed. Pulling his backpack closer, he dug a hand in and pulled out his ninja gi. He held it in both of his hands, thumb running over the gold detailing on the front before his face hardened.

“ _Not anymore._ ”

* * *

The sun rose on the city still in chaos and the ninja stood together outside the husk of the hangar. Well, all except for one absent green ninja.

Master Wu approached, grip firm on his staff as his brows creased. “Will Lloyd not be joining us?”

The ninja shared concerned glances with each other, clearly sharing the same thoughts. “We were hoping you would know, Master Wu,” Cole said, furrowing his brows.

“Yeah!” Jay spoke up, “Koko told us she hasn’t seen him since last night, she sounded worried.”

“And you _were_ the last one to speak to him.” Nya interjected, a slight accusation in her voice.

The old master seemed unperturbed. “Quite concerning…” Wu stroked his beard with his other hand before sighing. “No matter, if he decides not to join, we may go without him. Are you ready?”

At that, the ninja looked incredulous, beginning to mutter amongst themselves. He couldn’t be serious, expecting them to just _leave_ without so much as a second thought for their leader. Kai pressed his lips together, stepping foward, “ _With all due respect_ , Master, we’re not going anywhere without Lloyd. He’s part of the team.”

The others nodded, firm in their decision, much to Wu’s distaste. “If that is what you so choose. You may cling to personal matters such as this all you like, but need I remind you that all of Ninjago is at stake? We cannot afford to delay this any longer.”

“This is not just a personal matter,” Zane stated. “Lloyd is the green ninja, is he not? By all accounts, he should accompany us.”

For a moment, the expression that crossed Wu’s face struck fear of retribution into the five ninja in front of him. But just as quickly, it passed, and the old master turned away, leaning on his staff. “Very well. If you wish to remain here and wait for him, you may do so. I will make the journey alone as I intended,” Wu’s voice was more disappointed than ever and none of them could say they were surprised, but it still hurt.

The five ninja watched as their master walked away, sharing in the shallow feeling of betrayal. Wu didn’t even try to see their point, didn’t even try to understand. He just as easily turned his back on them, as though they were now untrustworthy, as though somehow caring for Lloyd as opposed to this crusade they knew nothing about made them useless.

“Come on, guys.” Cole said, breaking the somber silence, “Let’s go find Lloyd.”

* * *

They spent a good majority of the day scouring the city for any sign of their brother. Jumping from roof to roof, ducking under and around buildings, swinging wide around where Meowthra was currently ravaging. No one faltered on their quest until after the sun began to set and cast a dull orange glow over the buildings.

“Anything?” Kai asked over the comms. He was perched atop one of the skyscrapers,

“Negative,” Zane replied, sliding down the angle of a roof and dropping to the ground.

“That’s, uh, a no here, as well,” said Jay. “The only thing I’ve found is more of Garmadon’s stupid generals.”

“It _is_ getting late,” the nindroid pointed out. “Perhaps we should return to the hangar? If Lloyd still hasn’t returned home, it would stand to reason that he would return there, just as we would.”

“Good thinking, Zane,” said Cole. “Ninja, let’s regroup. Head back to the hangar as soon as you can.”

The statement was met with a brief affirmation from each of them and it wasn’t long before they were all there, each arriving at relatively the same time.

Stepping into the warehouse felt like walking into a ghost town. Parts of the roof had been caved in, letting in the evening, reddish sunlight that illuminated the piles of scrap and spare parts, half-finished projects and all manner of scattered personal belongings from the ninja. Amongst the piles, the five ninja found Lloyd digging through them.

“Lloyd!” Kai jumped ahead of everyone, relief etched across his expression. “There you are! We’ve been looking for you! You just… vanished on us, dude.”

Lloyd looked up from what he was doing, slightly startled by the sudden appearance, before he went back to picking through things and adding them to another pile he started of various weapons and supplies.

Zane was the next to speak, nervously shuffling forwards as he fit his hands together. “What are you doing, Lloyd?”

“Gathering supplies,” was all the green ninja replied with.

“To go and help find the Ultimate Ultimate Weapon?” Jay piped in.

“No. Not that.” There’s a pause, one that held heavy in the air as Lloyd let out a breath. Slowly, his gaze lifted and flatly, he spoke again. “I expect you guys won’t be letting me leave.”

The other ninja looked at each other, each sharing a similarly confused look. Kai stepped forwards slightly, about to speak, before he was cut off.

“Everyone in this city thinks I’m just like my dad,” Lloyd’s shoulders pulled and he looked down again, his breath shaking before he continued. "Everyone says I’m the reason for the bad stuff he does. And honestly? I never really blamed them. I thought… being the green ninja, I could make up for some of that, y’know? I thought, maybe if I do that, I could show them who I could really be."

The younger ninja turned, visibly tensed as he sucked in another shaky breath and the light that shone through one of the gaps in the roof glinted off his sword. With the blade held tight in his grasp, to the other five it looked like Lloyd was prepared to fight. That he was expecting them to lash out.

Lloyd’s voice is more stern, now, but he’s shaking, voice hitched ever so slightly. "But now I realize, I was wrong. They don’t want someone to make it up to them. They only want someone to blame. Someone that they can push around to feel better about themselves… So you know what? _Fine._ If they want me to be evil, I'll do it. And I'll do it better than he ever did."

They each shared a look. Between them, there was almost a knowing look, a fundamental understanding that didn’t need to be spoken. They each moved forwards, stood practically side by side and more confident, but still cautious, now.

Kai lifted his hand, gently placing it over Lloyd’s on his sword hilt. Firmly, he spoke.

“Not without us.”


	5. Chapter 5

******“W** –what?” Lloyd was completely baffled by the response. “I’m sorry… What?”

“You heard me, dude,” said Kai. “We’re with you, through and through.”

“Are you… You’re joking right now, you have to be.” Out of all the outcomes he could’ve expected, this one was the least likely to him. He expected a fight, physical or otherwise, some kind of pushback. Not… outright acceptance.

Cole hoisted himself forward from where he was leaning by the end of his hammer. “We agree. You shouldn’t have to live like this,” he spoke, his voice filling with determination, “And we shouldn’t have to live like this either. We haven’t exactly been treated like heroes around here either, Lloyd. We understand how you feel.”

Zane leaned a hand on Cole’s shoulder, piping up, “Though my main directive is to protect others, I have continually witnessed my friends being ridiculed by those we are meant to protect. Should it not be my job to protect those who are closest to me when they are hurt, too?”

“Not to mention, I’d love to see cheer boy wet his pants when he realizes he pissed off the ninja crew.” Nya pounded her fists together and smirked.

“The point is, we’ll stand behind you, Lloyd. No matter what.”

With Kai’s beaming smile reassuring him, Lloyd finally lowered the sword that he was still holding up, reaching up to realize tears had pricked his eyes. “Thank you guys,” he finally said, wiping them away, “It really means a lot to me.”

Jay leaned in around him, lifting a hand slightly. “Yeah, uhm… that’s great, sure. I don’t want to like… say no or anything, but… Does anyone actually have a plan? Or…”

“I believe Jay is correct. This is a decision not to be made lightly,” replied Zane.

Lloyd sighed as he pulled himself together, pressing his lips together before speaking. “You guys… really, really need to think about this. I don’t want you to say yes just because you feel like you have to.”

“I mean, I’m done with this place,” Kai muttered.

“Do you… have a plan, Lloyd?” the lightning ninja asked again.

“I spent the day doing recon, figuring stuff out. I watched what Garmadon was doing and it’s nothing exciting. So right now, Meowthra is our biggest problem. Our first order of business would be to get the Ultimate Weapon back from Garmadon. From what I saw, it shouldn’t be that hard. He has most of the Shark Army fetching stuff for him instead. After we get that?” He snorted a bit, posture easing as he looked up at the others. “This place will be like putty in our hands.”

“I like it!” Nya exclaimed, probably with a little too much enthusiasm for the subject at hand.

“I mean, are you sure Meowthra is the problem?” Jay asked. “Like, what about Master Wu? He can kick all our butts without even lifting a finger. He’ll just look at us and we’ll die instantly!”

“And Garmadon,” Cole added. “He won’t just give up and we don’t want to like… kill him. If we don’t have to.”

“I’m sure Wu is very well clear of the city at this point,” Zane stated, though he quickly clarified as Lloyd gave him a slightly confused look. “He decided to embark on the quest for the Ultimate Ultimate Weapon on his own. We saw you were not present and wanted to find you instead.”

“You… really did that? Just defied Master Wu like that?” asked the green ninja.

Kai gave a slightly dismissive flick of his wrist, huffing like it was nothing. “Like I said, we go where you go. You’re our brother, after all. It’s a no-brainer.”

“Right, right, right, okay… But what about when Wu comes back? What about Garmadon?” the lightning ninja pressed.

“Once we get the Ultimate Weapon, we can deal with Garmadon. I think that gives us enough leverage for right now. Wu is the only one we might have an issue with.”

“If he is successful in retrieving the Ultimate Ultimate Weapon, that being the only thing capable of stopping the beast, we may not be able to counter him,” the nindroid brought up. “We are unaware of what this other weapon does, we have to prepare for anything.”

“That’s the thing!” Lloyd snapped his fingers, pointing to Zane. “We don’t know what it does, there’s no way we can anticipate that. Not unless we scour every book on the Bounty, which we definitely don’t have time for. The best we can do is just brace ourselves, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

There was a slight hush that fell over them as they individually ran over the plan in their head.

“Like Zane said, this isn’t something we can take lightly. I know it’s not going to be easy, and even if we don’t make it that far, it’ll be worth it. I’m tired of this and I know you all are too. I know we can do this.”

Nya piped in this time. “Well, then what are we waiting for? Let’s do this!”

The youngest of the ninja spent a moment looking over everyone. He was still floored by the fact that everyone was so willing to just… do this. He straightened up, shoulders pulling back a bit as his face grew more determined. Now wasn’t the time to question it. Now was the time for action. This was too big to fail.

“Let’s get that weapon.”

* * *

Standing on a roof of one of the nearby buildings, the six ninja scope out of the state of Ninjago Tower. At this point, it looked like Garmadon had made himself comfortable, a few Shark Army generals outside shuffling to make it more… well, Garmadon-like. They were pulling pieces from the buildings Meowthra had destroyed, affixing them to the outside to fortify it and make it appear much more foreboding.

“What are we looking like, Zane?” Cole asked.

“I’m detecting a large number of life signs within the building,” Zane said, still scanning. “I suspect it may be quite difficult to make it in there unseen.”

“Don’t worry about it. First of all, we’re ninja. We’re trained to be stealthy,” Lloyd said with a slight huff. “Second of all, I have a plan B. What’s the layout?”

The nindroid pressed his lips together, optics darting over the building. “It is hard to say exactly. It appears the bulk of Garmadon’s forces are towards the upper floors. I cannot locate the Ultimate Weapon from this distance.”

“That’s good enough. Garmadon probably has the weapon on him, or at least near him. We find him, we find the weapon. Let’s go.”

The others all nodded in unison, pulling their cowls on as they went to make their move on the tower. They jumped and slid across the rooftops that were still standing, skirting the edge of Ninjago Tower and looking for a side with the least activity.

Zane hunkered down, pulling an arrow from his quiver and fastening a cable to the back end. Blue optics narrowed slightly, analyzing the side of the building before pointing. “That balcony there seems to have the least activity. I can get you there and cover you from here until it’s clear to move on.”

Lloyd nodded and the nindroid took aim. With relative ease, he was able to aim and fire the arrow perfectly so it lodged itself between a slight gap in the structure, and Zane gave it a rough yank to make sure it was firmly in place before handing the cable to the other to tie off.

“It won’t hold with all of us on there. It needs to be attached more securely,” Zane said. “Jay is the lightest, correct?”

“Oh, great…” Jay grumbled.

“You’ll be fine, sparky,” Kai said, nudging the other. “You know how to tie a knot, get in there.”

“Ugh. Fine. I hate being volun _told_.”

With the cable tightened down, Jay was very easily able to make his way across unnoticed. He clung on below the railing of the balcony, stopping there as one of the generals looked out ahead. He kept himself hunkered low, that was until there was the sound of an arrow whizzing by. The general turned to inspect where the arrow had stuck itself into the wall behind them, allowing the lightning ninja to clamber up the balcony just in time to see the general frozen in place.

It was then he was able to pull the arrow that held the cable from where it was lodged, tying it off proper to one of the posts that held the railing. One by one, the other ninja made their way across, Zane keeping watch from across the way.

As they attempted to scale the building, they ducked between windows and balconies to avoid being spotted.

“On your left,” Zane spoke into the comms.

“I got it,” came Kai’s hissed response, before he hoisted himself up over the railing of the balcony to their left, swinging with his foot to nail the general in the side of the head, knocking them out.

“No, wait–!” Of course, it was too late. While Kai may have taken care of one of the generals, there was another beside them who watched the display.

Kai got up from where he was still crouched, watching the general throw their arm up to radio in and blow their cover. He went to tackle them, but stopped as an arrow zoomed past sticking into the general’s chest armor and sending out ice splinters that froze them solid.

“I could’ve handled that,” the fire ninja pouted.

“I’m sure you could’ve,” the ice ninja replied dryly. “But I wasn’t going to wait around to find out.”

“Focus, you two!” Lloyd hissed as he hoisted himself up to the landing beside Kai. “ _Stealth_ implies _being quiet_.”

“Whatever. We’re almost to the top. You can probably head over, Zane.”

“On it.”

The nindroid took a quick up ahead, noting three generals on the upper levels with more inside, but ultimately nothing they couldn’t handle. He stood up, hooking his bow up onto his back before making his way across the cable and untying it when he got there, lest some wayward Shark Army find it there.

The path had already been cleared, it was just a matter of avoiding the windows as he joined back up with the others.

At the uppermost levels, there were two generals on one balcony, and another on one beside them. Easy enough for six ninja.

The solitary general was a walk in the park. Jay was able to climb up opposite them, giving a dainty little wave. The general opened their mouth to call out, but they were quickly silenced as Cole’s fist met harshly with the side of their face, sending them reeling and giving Jay an opportunity to give them a short, harsh zap to knock them out.

The other two were a bit trickier. Kai and Lloyd snuck up on either side, in unison grappling a general and wrenching an elbow around their neck to wrestle them to the ground and choke them out. It took a few seconds of hassling, but eventually, the two generals gave in and passed out, allowing them to climb the rest of the way up to where they hugged the ledge that just ringed the small wall that enclosed the roof.

Finally, atop the roof of Ninjago Tower, they were able to see what had become of the place. It was clear Garmadon had made himself right at home. The warlord himself was seated comfortably on a throne he had constructed, feet propped up as he looked like he was sleeping. On either side of him were two generals, and from their position peeking up just below the line of the roof, they could see the Ultimate Weapon was being held by the general to Garmadon’s right side.

“This isn’t going to work,” Jay hissed.

“Yes, it is. We just have to take out both guards at the same time. I’ll deal with Garmadon. Just follow my lead,” Lloyd whispered back. At that, he crawled up the side of the building and hid behind a large electrical box, out of sight.

“I hate when he does that. Does anyone else hate when he does that?”

Jay was met with only a few vague shrugs from the others before they followed suit, using anything they could as cover to skirt around the side. The green ninja motioned slightly, pointing to the opposite side of the building. Zane, Nya, and Kai nodded and split off from the group to flank from the left.

Sneaking by the patrolling generals, Cole and Zane converged from either side, slipping quietly up behind the two generals on either side of the dozing warlord. Zane held his hand down to Cole, his first three fingers out, silently counting down. At the last moment, together, they threw their arms up, one wrapping around their respective general’s torso, the other flying up to clasp a hand over their mouth. The two ninja were plenty stronger than the general and were able to pull them back and down.

What they didn’t entirely account for was the right general to drop the Ultimate Weapon before Cole could grab it, causing it to clatter to the ground.

Garmadon snapped up, whipping around to see what the cause of the sound was. “General #1! What did I say about napping on the job?!” There was a cause for alarm, however, as he received no answer since the general in question was currently in the grasp of the earth ninja. He noticed the Ultimate Weapon on the floor, hastily picking it up before he stood.

“What’s going on?! Who’s there?!”

“What was your plan B, Lloyd?” Jay whispered, nudging him.

Lloyd made a face of discomfort, not really wanting it to come to this, but he steeled himself before he slipped his cowl off. Jay almost grabbed him out of panic, but the other easily pushed him off as he moved out into the open.

“Sorry to drop in like this, dad,” he stated, crossing his arms.

“Lloyd!” Garmadon snapped. “I knew you and your little ninja nerds… ninja… ninj.. nerds… _ninjnerds_ were up to something! Get him! And find the others!”

Several generals that were meandering the area snapped to attention, two of them grabbing and restraining Lloyd, who didn’t fight back. Kai, Jay, and Nya were also grabbed by more Shark Army and pushed into the open, as there weren’t many more places to hide.

Zane, however, pulled back as another general moved towards him, the hand over the mouth of the one he was holding snapping down to his belt to pull a sai from it. The nindroid hastily pressed the point of the weapon to the general’s neck, eyes narrowing as his grip tightened.

“Whoa, whoa!” Garmadon looked around, watching as the ice ninja took a defensive stance. “Relax! Your buddy is getting a little hot here! Kinda weird for a guy who’s supposed to be ice, y’know? But let’s not get too wild! Generals don’t just grow on trees.”

“Call off your generals and we’ll talk,” the blond commanded.

His father scrunched his nose, obviously not willing to comply right away. After a moment or so of surveying the scene, he let out a sigh, before waving one of his hands. “Fine. Let them go.”

The Shark Army did so, stepping back afterwards. At that, Zane and Cole let go of the generals they were holding, and they scrambled away to join the others.

The ninjas all stood together, now, before Garmadon, who looked over them with a look of disdain before speaking. “What are you doing here, Lloyd? Did you finally wise up and want to listen to your old man?”

“We came to a decision,” replied Lloyd. “ _I_ don’t want to join you. But _we_ will.”

The others looked to their leader hastily, taken aback by the decision. Jay opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything, he was cut off my Garmadon.

“Oh, my son! I’m so glad you finally see it my way!” The warlord practically lit up at that, clapping his uppermost hands together. He stepped towards his son, reaching out and placing a hand on his shoulder, slowly leading him towards the edge of the building where they could look out across the cityscape still being ravaged by the Six-Toed Beast.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it, son? This is what I’ve wanted all along; to tear down this wretched place and build our new life here!”

“I never liked this place, anyways. I’m glad to see it fall.”

Garmadon grinned, wicked teeth on full display. “That’s the spirit! Oh, it’s so good to hear you say that!”

There was a moment of silence between them, watching the monster as it toppled and flattened buildings. Lloyd couldn’t help but give a slight laugh. “Hey, dad? You mind if I try using the weapon? I never got to use it properly.”

“Oh, sure thing! Give ‘er a whirl. It’s a good rush,” the villain beamed, holding out the Ultimate Weapon for his son to grab.

Eagerly, he took ahold of it, turning it over in his hands to get a good grip and find the button. He pressed down on it, and the light shone out, grabbing the attention of the beast. She whipped around, eyes narrowed as she leapt and pounced, crushing a bus that had been abandoned on the street and prompting a laugh from the young ninja. He spent a couple moments waving it around, watching Meowthra follow, before he whipped around, hitting Garmadon across the chest with the back of the weapon and pushing him away.

“Ninja! Cover me!” he shouted.

The other five quickly drew their weapons, forming a protective line around Lloyd.

Garmadon shook his head a bit, snapping himself out of it as he looked at the green ninja, stunned. “You… You’re joking, right? You have to be joking!” Despite everything, he lowered his head a bit and let out a laugh that was loud and more genuine than ever, as if Lloyd had just told the best joke he’d ever heard in his life. “Like, this is part of the act! You just want to prove it! To prove that you’re evil, yeah? Because I gotta say, that’s really good! That’s… oh, that’s rich. I know you wouldn’t betray me, son.” He paused a moment wiping his eyes of the tears of laughter as he calmed down and continued. “You couldn’t betray your own father! Not after everything I’ve done for you, right?”

“You didn’t do anything for me,” Lloyd hissed. “All you did was ruin things for me. All I wanted was to live my life, but because of you I got taunted, teased, pushed around. I was treated like I was nothing.”

He stepped forward, slowly and carefully, hand hovering over the button of the weapon pointed directly at his father. Fearfully, the other stepped back, all four arms raised in defense. “Listen, Lloyd. You don’t have to do that! We both want the same thing, don’t we? To see this city reduced to ash! You don’t have to do this to me, I’m your old man!”

“I’ve had enough, Garmadon. _We’ve_ had enough. This is our city now, and we want you nowhere in it. Leave Ninjago City right now, or you and all of your generals will pay for it. You can’t stop me, now.”

The warlord was clearly torn. He wanted to retaliate, but now that Lloyd knew what the Ultimate Weapon did, he knew he wouldn’t be getting away with it that easy. Panicked, he tried to reason one last time. “Lloyd! Come on, think about this! Didn’t you always want a father? Now you can have one! I know you won’t kill me!”

The green ninja growled, and before Garmadon could beg any further, he pressed the button and shined the beacon directly at his father. Meowthra grumbled, lifting her head and letting out a deep, bellowing sound that vaguely resembled a meow. Almost immediately, she began stomping her way towards them, tail swishing as she prepared to pounce.

Garmadon reeled back. “Generals! Generals get me out of here! Everyone fall back!”

There was a resounding, “Yes, sir!” as the Shark Army began to scramble to leave.

The warlord clambered back into his mech, a few jellyfish ships flying up and affixing heavy chains to its shoulders and hoisting it up off the roof.

“You haven’t seen the last of me, ninja! And next time, I’ll be sure to get rid of you! All of you!” he hollered as his machine was carried off, up and out of the city.

The ninja watched as Garmadon and the Shark Army fled the city, laughing to themselves and high-fiving each other. They also weren’t the only ones celebrating. Cheering could be heard from the streets as people left their shelters to witness the return of the ninja and banishing of Lord Garmadon.

There was something more pressing, however, as they felt a waft of air push against them. They turned and Meowthra’s nostrils flared, the face of the creature taking up their entire view. Jay pulled back abruptly at the sight, shouting and leaping up in fear, instinctively jumping into Cole’s arms in a panic.

“Lloyd, do something!” he hollered.

Cole scrunched his nose, looking down at Jay. “Dude…” was all he said before promptly dropping the lightning ninja.

The green ninja slowly and carefully set the Ultimate Weapon down, not taking his eyes off the creature before him. She looked down at them, her face an odd mass of several eyes that seemed to shift and change, though still remaining discernibly feline. Lloyd slowly lifted his hands, holding them out carefully, allowing Meowthra to sniff at them. “Easy… easy,” he mumbled.

Remarkably, he wasn’t met with any sort of aggression. Instead, her ears swiveled forward, head tilting ever so slightly.

“That’s it… That’s a good girl… Take it easy,” he continued to croon until she seemed visibly eased.

Lloyd smiled softly, at that, reaching out and carefully brushing his fingers through the short grey fur above Meowthra’s nose. “I know it. I know it. You don’t mean to destroy everything…” he said at last. “Everyone just sees you as a monster, but I know you just feel scared and alone. I guess we aren’t so different, y’know?”

The creature lowered her head slightly and soon began to produce a deep rumble, like a purr.

“You’re really just a sweetheart, huh? And this place betrayed you. You didn’t want this, but they all forced you. Is that it?” The response was a gentle nuzzle from Meowthra, almost as if she understood, but none of them could be certain that was the case or if she was simply being affectionate. Either way, Lloyd couldn’t help but chuckle, continuing to run his fingers through the fur on her face.

“I’m gonna help you, alright?” And with that, Lloyd pulled his cowl back up over his head, picking up the Ultimate Weapon at his feet. Meowthra turned and lowered her head, allowing the young ninja to start to climb up.

“Whoa, whoa! Are you sure that’s a good idea, dude?” Kai stepped forwards towards the two of them, as did the others, concern etched across their expression.

“She’s not going to hurt us,” Lloyd responded, running a gloved hand through her fur. “Get on. Trust me.”

Still hesitant, though trusting, the other five climbed through disheveled black and grey fur, Zane reaching down to grab Jay’s arm and hoist him up as they settled on the creature’s back.

Meowthra turned at Lloyd’s behest, facing what remained of the city. Citizens gathered in the street, news vans and cameras all pointed at the scene, celebrating the return of the brave ninja heroes who warded off Garmadon and tamed the beast that ruined this city.

“They did it! We’re saved!”

“Ninjago is saved again! Our heroes!”

The words just barely reached them with how far up they were, and Jay leaned in. “Are you sure about this still? That we just want to… betray that?”

An assured silence hung over them in response.

The sun burned a deep orange and red trail in the sky behind them, silhouetting their shape atop the back of the massive creature. The green ninja softly cooed to her, giving a firm pat on the side of her neck and Meowthra slowly lowered, laying down on the street and letting them slide down.

Lloyd took a few steps forward, looking out at the crowd that had gathered there, praising the triumphant return of their heroes. Almost immediately, there were cameras from the local news station in their face and a reporter asking questions, which they all promptly ignored.

The green ninja dropped the Ultimate weapon at his feet, putting on foot up on it and drawing his sword.

“People of Ninjago City,” he began, louder and clearer than ever, voice carrying with a harrowing echo through the ruined streets. It was evident that Lloyd was nervous, the way his hands shook and his voice tapered off. Nervous, but more determined and assured in this than anything they other ninja had seen in him before. “You know what we are, but do you know who we are? What we do when the cowls come off? Do you ever think that maybe someone you passed by on the street just might’ve been one of us?”

He let that simmer for a moment, before lifting a hand and yanking off his mask.

A collective gasp was heard, stunned silence taking over.

“But you all know me, don’t you? I’m sure you know all of us! How does it feel? To know your so-called hero, the savior of Ninjago City, is just a kid that you all toss around and treat like he’s nothing?” His voice rose harshly, green eyes almost flashing brighter in the low light. “How does it feel?!”

The people began to murmur amongst each other, eyes darting around nervously and a tangible fear hanging heavy.

“We are sick and tired of doing favors for a city that treats us lower than dirt! This. Ends. Now!” And with a single, definitive motion, the blond swiped downwards with his sword, driving the blade through the seam where the shiny silver focus cap met the body of Ultimate Weapon, breaking it open and sending the components of it scattering from the force.

“Lloyd, what was that for?! We needed that!” Cole protested.

“No we don’t,” he spoke firmly to them before he turned back to Meowthra who was staring down at the remains of the weapon, as if in shock. “You’re free, now, Meowthra! Free to do as you want! Level this whole place if you have to, no one can tell you not to anymore!”

A newfound fury rose up in the beast as if she knew. She knew what just happened to her. Meowthra let out a deep, booming sound of anger, hissing as she rose to her feet and lashed out, beginning her rampage anew. The stunned silence was replaced by terror, the civilians that had gathered to watch scattering once more and attempting to duck and hide.

Lloyd stood there once more, watching across the city at the chaos that unfolded once more. His chaos. There was nothing that could hold them back now.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey everyone! i'm super thrilled y'all are enjoying the work so far! :D just a quick note, there probably won't be a chapter update next week, since i need a little extra time to play catch up.  
> i also have a note regarding the previous chapter. while i'm aware it's a lot of fun to see your favorite characters get hurt, it was... kind of uncomfortable, to say the least, seeing more than one person comment with a similar tone praising the zane angst when the subject matter was literal abuse. i didn't mind it when the context was the ice tank incident, but i would really appreciate those kinds of comments not be made on a chapter where julien is involved in future. thank you. :]


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heads up! You Know Who is in this chapter again. Another warning for abuse!

**I** t was then the battered and disheveled warehouse didn’t feel so bleak and ominous. The six of them poured in, high-fiving and patting each other on the back or grabbing the other by the shoulder and shaking them.

“That was awesome, Lloyd!” Kai hollered, clapping the younger ninja on the shoulder.

“Yeah, dude! You owned it! I was even scared for a little bit!” Nya agreed.

Zane couldn’t help but flap his hands, a smile plastered across the nindroid’s face as it looked like every motor in him was vibrating. “My circuits are buzzing! It feels… wrong. But…” A pause, where his gaze fell and he looked slightly quizzical. “I think I might be an adrenaline junkie.”

The lightning ninja wrung his hands together, though, carefully opening his mouth. “Alright, we did that, uh… Now what? We just… wait for Meowthra or something? Lay low for a while?”

“What? After all that? No way! We can… We can do whatever we want, now!” The fire ninja seemed all too enthusiastic about the idea.

“No… No, Jay’s right for now,” Lloyd cut off Kai before he could continue that thought.

“Thank you,” Jay spat. “I know you guys are like… probably way too excited right now, but I… I don’t know. I’ve got my parents to look after.”

The energy in the room seemed to die down, both from Jay’s statement and the overall buzz waning. Zane fit his hands together, shifting before he spoke. “We still need to think about this logically, of course. We can’t just… run out there and destroy everything.”

Kai snorted in response. “Why not? We just _denounced_ them! On live television!”

“Maybe so, but I still have a directive! I agree that we shouldn’t have to put up with this anymore, but I can’t abide by hurting people who don’t deserve it!”

“Directive my ass! I thought you said you were protecting _us_ now!”

“I still have a family to protect! You know that!” The temperature dropped harshly as the android snapped, and Kai drew back as if he had been hit physically by the words.

The tension was cut harshly by a loud bang as Cole slammed the top of his hammer down onto the concrete floor. “Don’t fight! That’s not what this is about! We’re all we have, now, we’re not going to get anywhere if we’re already at each other’s throats.”

“Speak for yourself,” Jay mumbled.

“I have something to do, as well,” the android concurred. “I have to get my brother. Before this gets out of hand.”

The green ninja pursed his lips, looking nervously between his friends. Gently, he lifted a hand and placed it on the lightning ninja’s shoulder. “Go to your parents, Jay. And Zane, go get Echo. Right now, I think we all just need to calm down. We’ll fix up the hangar so we can stay the night here.”

Each of them looked around briefly, before meeting their leader’s gaze and nodding. Jay quietly changed out of his ninja garb, leaving it draped over the back of the couch, but Zane didn’t bother and simply removed his cowl. The two of them seemed somewhat nervous in their actions, Jay more so than Zane, and the two of them left the warehouse without a word as the others moved to start cleaning and gathering supplies to make repairs.

* * *

Jay almost hated coming here. He almost regretted it, because of what he had to do. He strode into the junkyard, and at that moment it felt like the heaps of scrap were slowly drawing in on him, looming over him like they knew what he had done.

“Mom? Dad? I’m home, I…” He hated the way his voice very nearly echoed, trailing off quickly. There was the sound of rustling shortly after he called, and soon enough his father was stepping out of their trailer, quickly ushering Jay inside.

“Oh, goodness!” He started. “It’s good to see ya in one piece, boy. Come in. Your mother’s been worried sick about ya goin’ into the city, what with all the ruckus we’ve heard about. Ain’t that right, dear?”

“You’re gosh darn right!” Edna replied, slightly more harsh than usual, as she got up from where she was seated, putting down what she was knitting. “I tell ya, Jay, it’s no good for ya out there!”

Jay supposed, at that moment, that he was lucky his parents rarely ever watched television, if they could even get the thing to work. They most likely didn’t see the big green ninja reveal yet, so he was safe. For now, at least.

“Yeah, uhm… I know there’s that whole, uh… giant monster thing,” the brunette mumbled. “But I wanted to make sure my friends were okay! And they are. So… y’know, that’s good, at least.” He punctuated that with a slightly nervous laugh, rubbing the back of his neck.

There was a silence that hung heavy and awkward between them as Jay desperately tried to come up with something to fill the conversational void before one of his parents did. Of course he didn’t, though, and Edna spoke up.

“Is everything alright, dear?”

“Uhm…” He wanted to come up with a lie, but he knew everything would be better for it if he didn’t. So he came clean. “Mom, dad… S-something… Something big is coming. Something I can’t… I can’t stop,” Jay spoke slow, fitting his hands together and shrinking back from the gaze of his parents.

“Jay?” Ed tilted his head questioningly, taking half a step towards his son. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. We just wanna make sure everythin’s alright. You can be honest with us.”

The lightning ninja tensed, fighting back tears as he tried his hardest not to make eye contact with either of them.

“Please, you have to leave. I–” Jay’s voice broke, and he grit his teeth trying to steel himself again. “You can’t stay here. I can’t… I can’t explain it, I just… I don’t want you guys to get hurt. I don’t want you in that crossfire to see what–”

“Oh, honey,” Edna moved closer, placing a hand on Jay’s shoulder. “We’ll be okay, we’ve been okay all this time.”

“No, you don’t understand. It’s– it’s different this time.”

“Dear?”

Finally, Jay was able to look up, to make eye contact with his mother. “You… You’ve trusted me, a-and I don’t…” He paused, looking down again as the tears started to flow. “I just want you to be proud of me… But after th-this I… I don’t know if you can…”

The lightning ninja quickly wiped his eyes on his sleeves as his parents exchanged worried looks. Digging his hands into his pocket, he pulled out a wad of black and dark blue fabric, and upon unfolding it, it was his ninja cowl. He looked up again, holding it out to them. “I… I’m the Lightning Ninja.”

Edna opened her mouth to reply, but Jay quickly held up a hand and started instead. “–And I know. ‘ _Jay, the ninja do such great work, why would we not be proud of you?_ ’ or ‘ _Jay, you reckless maniac, why would you do such stupid and dangerous stuff?_ ’ Because… well, because we thought we were doing good. But… no one in this city actually likes us for who we are, just for what we can do. Once I take this cowl off, I’m a nobody. All of us get treated like garbage when we aren’t in these stupid costumes.”

He took a deep, slow breath, trying to stop his voice from shaking any further, but it just kept breaking and he almost couldn’t keep it together. “So we just… We’re done, now. All of us. We let that monster out in the city, and we’re going to do what we want now. And I don’t want you guys to be around to see what that is. I don’t… I don’t want to do anything bad! I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just–”

“Jay?” His mother quickly moved forwards, wrapping her arms firmly around him. “We’ll always be proud of you, sweetie…”

Ed soon followed, joining the embrace. “I, uh… Even if ya let loose a giant monster, I suppose. Whatever makes ya happy, son.”

“It’s not that, I–” Jay grumbled to himself a bit, frustrated by himself and his own stupid emotions. He rubbed the tears from his eyes once more, huffing. “I’m just tired of seeing my friends and I get pushed around. I want to do something about it. I don’t know what, exactly, but… I need to do this.”

The three of them spend a few more moments hanging in that embrace, his mother humming softly as she rubbed small circles into his back.

“Thank you…” the lightning ninja said at last. “I… I need to go, though. My friends need me. I just… I needed to see you again. To tell you this myself.”

Slowly, they pulled apart, and despite it all, Jay cracked a smile. Edna couldn’t help but ruffle his hair, and Ed clapped him on the shoulder.

“If that’s what ya wanna do, and you’re only kickin’ bad guys’ butts, well I… I suppose we could let ya. What d’ya say, Edna?”

The older woman looked at her husband, a bit frustrated, though it was more mock frustration than anything. “I’d prefer if there’d be less butt-kicking, but if that’s the way you have to do it, then knock yourself out, kiddo.”

Jay wasn’t quite sure they understood the gravity of it all, and to be honest, he wasn’t so sure, either. Regardless, though, he was thankful they at least tried, and gave them one last hug, Edna unable to help herself and giving him a big kiss on the cheek, before he said goodbye and made his way back to the others.

* * *

By this point, the sun had gone down, but Zane was more than confident his father was still up, waiting for him. Something that he was counting on, actually. He didn’t care that he was out without his mask. He didn’t care that in the low light, the glow of his eyes was visible. He didn’t care what his father would say when he got there.

Gripping the handle of his apartment door, he threw it open and it was only a few seconds before, sure enough, Dr. Julien was on his feet and staring him down.

“Zane Julien! What in the Sixteen Realms has gotten into you?”

Zane closed the door behind him and he didn’t even acknowledge the question. “Where’s Echo?”

“Don’t start with me!” Julien snapped. “Are you malfunctioning? What are you doing with your friends out there! Don’t think you can get out of this one!”

“I’ll ask again. Where’s Echo?”

“You aren’t going to see hide nor tail of him until you answer me.”

The ice ninja was a fair bit taller than his father, so he was able to see over him quite easily, and over his shoulder, he spotted two yellow eyes from the crack of a darkened doorway. “Echo, get your things. We’re leaving,” he called out to him, attempting to brush by his father.

Julien wouldn’t have it, however, and moved to stand in front of him once more. “You are not going anywhere! Answer me!” The scientist didn’t hold back this time and full-bore struck the other across the face, scrambling his sensors for a bit.

“No!” Echo cried, leaping from his room with a frazzled Apollo in tow. “Don’t hit! What did he do?!”

While Zane was still regaining himself from the force of the blow, the mechanics in his neck clicking a bit after being wrenched like that, his father had made his way over and forcibly grabbed the younger android by the arm. To which he promptly howled, reeling back and trying to wrench himself free. “Hey! Let me go! Let me go, I wanna be with Zane!”

“You listen to me, Echo, you’re going to stay right here where you’re safe, okay? I can’t have you just wandering around out there with him! Zane should be staying here, too, because he’s clearly got a few screws loose!”

The temperature in the room began to drop and frost began to creep up the nearby window and up along the nindroid’s clothing from his fingers. “Let go of him, Julien. Or I will make you,” demanded Zane, finally recovering and fists clenching at his sides.

“I know you can’t hurt me, Zane. Because I can’t protect myself, you can’t. I know you can’t, so drop this act and tell me what the hell is going on!”

Apollo let out a sharp cry, flapping his wings and circling to perch on the back of the couch nearest Zane, his head lowering as if waiting for a command. Echo was shaking, now, tears welling in his eyes as Julien gripped him tighter. “Dad, please let me go! You’re hurting me!”

Zane narrowed his eyes, before charging towards the two of them, icy hands gripping tight to both of Julien’s wrists. Before his father could react and kick out, the ice ninja stomped his foot, and ice shot up from it, encasing the scientist’s legs and keeping him rooted there. He wrenched the older man’s hand downwards, the one that didn’t have a death grip on his brother, pinning it and freezing it to the mass of ice twisted around his legs.

“Let my brother go, or I will make you. This is your last warning!”

Julien cried out as he was easily overpowered by the mechanical strength of his son, pulling back and letting go of Echo and allowing him to scurry off to stand beside their falcon. Zane let go slowly, his father’s wrists ringed with dull blue bruises, and he turned to his brother.

He sunk down so he was level with the younger android, lifting a hand carefully to wipe the tears from his face with his thumb. “Echo, did you get your things together? We’re going to go back to the other ninjas. I promise we’ll keep you safe.”

Echo nodded slowly and Zane took him into their room, brushing past their father who was still rooted in place and struggling to break off the ice. Zane gathered a few of his own things, clothing items and a book or two, emptying the contents of his school backpack and using that to carry it all. Echo dumped a few sketchbooks and pencils in there, as well as some of his own clothes and a couple stuffed animals, and the eldest of them zipped up the bag and slung it over his shoulder. He supposed they were somewhat lucky, being automatons and all, that they wouldn’t need to waste space packing food or anything like that. Not that Julien bought it for them, anyway.

As they moved to leave, Apollo fluttering over and perching on Zane’s outstretched arm, Julien shouted from across the room.

“Now what? What if one of you breaks? I’m the one that built you! You can’t just leave me like this!”

Zane didn’t turn to look back at him. “Of course I can. I’m about to right now.” A pause as he started to open the door. “Don’t worry, though. It’s just ice. It’ll melt… Eventually.”

The comment garnered a slight snicker from the younger nindroid, and with that, the two of them left the apartment wordlessly and started making their way back to the warehouse.

As they stepped out onto the street, Echo nervously clinging to his brother’s arm, Apollo took off and began flying in the direction they were headed, circling and keeping watch. After a few moments of silence, Echo slowly spoke up.

“I… never seen you do that before,” he mumbled. “That was really scary…”

Zane paused a moment to look down at his free hand, a cold fog rolling off his palm as he sighed. “I know. I apologize. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“...Does it hurt?”

The older brother tilted his head, continuing to walk, now. “Does what hurt?”

“The… the ice. Does it hurt when you… do that?”

“Oh!” He gave a slight chuckle, lifting the same hand and gathering up some energy in his palm to form a shard of ice. “No, it doesn’t hurt. It’s… interesting to describe. I find it hard to pinpoint the exact sensation.”

Echo seemed quite fascinated by the conjuration of ice but looked down and away after a bit. “I… I’m scared.”

“I know you are,” Zane lowered his voice and gripped his brother’s hand ever so slightly tighter. “But we’re going to be alright.”

“Pinky promise?”

“Pinky promise.”

* * *

After the other two had left the hangar, Kai snorted slightly when he was sure the nindroid was out of earshot. “I can’t believe this. The nerve…”

“Let it go, Kai,” Cole pressed. “You know he didn’t mean it like that.”

“Ugh… whatever,” the fire ninja huffed again as he turned to start helping tidy up. “Doesn’t mean it wasn’t uncalled for…”

Cole was easily able to hoist up the larger chunks of the ceiling that had fallen in, tossing them into a larger pile outside to deal with later, Kai sweeping up the smaller bits and collected dust afterwards.

On the other side of the room, Nya puzzled over the backup generator they’d hooked up a while back, which was originally there to emergency charge their mechs if Garmadon cut the power, but, well… clearly, that wasn’t its purpose anymore. After a few slightly frustrating moments, the generator sputtered and kicked on, the building finally coming to life.

With the lights on, now, it was easier to get a bearing on the state of the warehouse. At this point, the bulk of it was cleaned up, barring the holes in the exterior, but overall it wasn’t that big of a catastrophe. Lloyd shuffled around a bunch of the spare mech parts, getting them off the tables and into a useless pile. In his efforts, though, he found his phone on one of the worktables, and upon picking it up, saw his home screen filled entirely with texts and missed calls from his mother.

“This is good enough, right? We got four walls and most of a roof, we can fix the rest later,” Kai said as he sat down heavily on the couch, throwing his arm over the back of it and leaning back.

“And we don’t have to worry about Meowthra wrecking it again,” Nya added.

Kai nodded in agreement before he turned on the television and game console they had set up there, looking over to see Lloyd staring down at his phone with a rather solemn expression.

The green ninja scrunched his face slightly, looking up from his phone. “You know, guys…” he spoke at last. “If we really do this, we might not be able to be around our families anymore. This is a really, really big risk.”

Kai scoffed, fiddling with the controller in his hand. “I don’t see how that’s a big deal.”

“Maybe not for you, Kai, but not everyone might feel that way.”

“Ugh, not you too!” The fire ninja sat up, at that. “Listen, I might’ve grown up without my parents, but I’m not stupid. With the type of family you guys have, we’re better off just sticking with each other.”

“Oh my _gods,_ Kai! Shut up,” Nya huffed as she planted herself next to her brother. “Lloyd has a point. We can’t speak for everyone. This decision is going to impact more than us.”

“Hmph… know-it-all…” Kai stuck his tongue out at his sister, and she responded in kind.

As the siblings continued making faces, Cole wandered back over to the group, wiping the dust from debris off his hands. “We know it’s not an easy decision, Lloyd, but truthfully… I don’t think most of us want to be around our families anymore. Not if it means having to be silent about the way everyone treats us.”

Lloyd turned his gaze solemnly to the older ninja. “Not even your dad?”

At that, the earth ninja averted his eyes, his previous conviction fading into uncertainty. “I…”

Kai interjected before Cole could respond, giving a brief dismissive gesture. “Who cares about him? Who cares about any of them! If they really ever gave a shit about us, they would have noticed we were running around thanklessly saving their butts all the time. But they didn’t, and the decision’s already been made anyways. This is our home, now!”

He settled back down as Cole joined him, picking up one of the game controllers. “We’ve got the hangar, we’ve got each other. Hell, we’ve got _superpowers_ . We can fend for ourselves. What more could you ask for?”

“Yeah… You’re right,” Lloyd said. He looked down at the device again, reading over some of the messages, each of them concerned and asking where he was, what he was doing, if he was okay. He didn’t even dare listen to the voicemail. For a brief moment, he considered deleting all of them, just so he wouldn’t have to look at them anymore, but he decided against it for now, instead just tucking his phone back into his pocket. “Let’s just stay focused.”


	7. Chapter 7

******_F_** _rozen. Everything around was white and pale blue, covered in massive spikes of ice. He tried to move, but the crystals began to creep up his legs, twisting and climbing up him. He was able to yank himself free, take a few staggering steps, but the ice got thicker and thicker and held on tighter and tighter._

_In the distance, there was a glow. Through the frigid shroud, he saw glowing red, orange, a bit of green and gold. Soon enough he could make out a fire. He yanked and was able to haul himself a few more steps towards it. Flames began to drip down around him, melting some of the ice. The fire burned brighter and brighter, hotter and hotter. He reached for it, desperate to try and free himself. And something reached back._

_“Zane…”_

_There was a face in the fire. He grasped for it, its expression contorting into something like agony. Everything around him was a rising inferno, but he was still freezing, the ice still closing in on him._

_“Zane…”_

_Grasping, grasping, clawing desperately, trying to fight it. He looked around to try and find some kind of purchase, some way to break himself free, and more faces appeared before him, each engulfed in a blazing light. Blue, green, gold, white. His ever freezing fingers twisted and clawed towards them. Grasping… Grasping… Desperate… He tried to scream but fluorescent blue began to pour from his mouth, ice shaping itself into jagged teeth around his jaw and–_

“Zane!”

The nindroid snapped awake. He blinked a few times, optics flickering as they recalibrated, and he shook his head.

Looking around, the five ninja and Echo stood around him, Kai knelt down with heated hands against his side. “Dude… are you okay?”

Zane blinked a couple more times, instinctively lifting a hand to his head as he sat up where he had settled in one of the corners of the hangar with Echo the previous night. “I… I’m fine, yes.”

Kai pressed his lips together, slowly drawing his hands back. “You were getting really cold, there. Are you sure?”

“Yes. I just… I _saw_ something…”

Lloyd spoke up this time, almost pushing past the others to get closer, slightly panicked. “You had a vision?”

“Correct. It was… grim. I… I do not know what to make of it.”

“Well, what happened in it?”

The nindroid pursed his lips, focusing a moment before he spoke. He did his best to describe what he saw, fitting his hands together, slightly nervous at the concerned look from his friends. He punctuated his regalement with an attempt to brush it off. “I believe it requires further analysis. It may have just been the result of what happened after Meowthra destroyed our mechs, taken to an extreme. It’s best not to worry ourselves about it right this moment. What _could_ be is nothing to be concerned about just yet.”

“That’s not _nothing_ , though, Zane,” Cole said. “We know that just doesn’t happen normally.”

“Of course it isn’t nothing,” Zane quickly tried to dismiss. “I do not intend to take this lightly. However, I think it would be in our best interest to not let it bother us currently.”

The others exchanged a look, still concerned, but decided not to press the poor nindroid for answers anymore.

“Alright… Just… let us know if you get anything more,” Lloyd said.

“Of course.”

The group dispersed, going back to what they were doing. Jay and Nya tinkered with some of the wiring in the hangar to make sure it was working, Kai, Lloyd, and Cole sitting around on the couch, and Zane and Echo situated in one of the corners. Echo had a book open on his lap, but at the moment, his gaze was fixated on his brother.

“You… You had a vision? Like… you can see the future ‘nd stuff?” the younger android asked.

“Something close to that, yes,” Zane replied. “It is often unclear what the meanings of them are. Whether they are of the future or an abstract warning is up in there air most times. I had one when we were attempting to figure out the identity of the green ninja.”

“How d’ya get ‘em? Are they like dreams?”

“I am not sure why me. The others do not possess the same ability.” The ice ninja’s gaze became somewhat vacant after that. He shifted a bit, looking out across to the opposite wall. “I would say they’re more like nightmares.”

“Oh…”

The hangar lapsed into a silence that stretched on for quite some time, the energy clearly much lower than it was normally, despite everything.

Kai took note of the way Lloyd kept glancing down at his phone and made a huffing sound as he stood up.

“Alright, this is ridiculous. You all look like someone died. What the hell are we doing?” he announced, drawing the attention of everyone there. “We’ve been over this! This is our city, now! We’re a bunch of freaks with superpowers in a city that’s being demolished by a giant monster! There are no rules anymore!”

“Kai, what are you–” Jay started.

“I’m saying we need to go out and have fun! Do crazy shit!”

Jay looked around nervously, noting Zane’s similar slightly apprehensive look. Eventually, though, he dared to ask. “Like what?”

* * *

He had to do it. He just had to ask. Out of every possible outcome that he even remotely began to formulate, this hardly made the list.

“You’re crazy,” the lightning ninja stated, an almost physical feeling of dread hanging over him.

Kai was grinning from ear to ear, however, and he slapped the other on the shoulder probably a bit too hard. “Yup! I am! Now, let’s do this!”

Jay never thought an amusement park would be so daunting. But he watched as Cole moved up to the chained up gate below the Mega Monster Amusement Park sign, taking the chain in both hands and effortlessly tearing it in two.

They made their way inside, Nya coming up behind Jay and putting a hand on his shoulder, nudging him. “C’mon, you’re with me. I brought a bunch of tools so we can fix up the rides and mess around with ‘em.”

“Oh, good…” he mused.

The fire ninja dropped his bag on the ground, opening it up to pull out a few cans of spray paint and beginning to shake up one of them. Zane wandered over to him, hands fit together, slight worry etched across his expression.

Kai didn’t look away from what he was doing, inspecting the wall of one of the buildings and mentally mapping out what he was going to do. “Don’t give me that look, Zane, I know what you’re about to say.”

The nindroid made a slightly annoyed huff, at that. “Is this what we do now? Vandalism?”

“Uh, yeah. What does it look like? C’mon, grab a can.”

“You know I can’t.”

The other finally looked away, before reaching into his bag and pulling out a can of white paint, tossing it to his friend who instinctively caught it. “Why? Because some old dude who doesn’t even care about you said so?”

Zane turned the can over in his hand, looking down at it pensively. “My programming states–”

“Your _programming_ was written by a shithead. What’s he gonna do now? What’s anyone gonna do?” He paused as if waiting for a response, which Zane was prepared to give before he was cut off. “That’s right! Nothing. And it’s not like I’m asking you to, like, commit a felony. Just spray your stupid name on this wall with me.”

He wasn’t sure Kai quite understood what being programmed meant. It was one thing for him to be witness to this without protest, it was another to actually participate. Scrunching his nose a bit, he eventually conceded, shaking up the spray can for a few moments.

“That’s the spirit,” Kai beamed, starting to spray his name across the wall in big, blocky red letters. As Zane started to add his own name, he grabbed yellow and orange as well, slapping on a giant messy flame design.

In the meantime, Nya dropped her toolbox in front of the control unit for the roller coaster, the biggest smile plastered on her face. “Gods, this thing is almost as dusty as your parent’s junkyard,” she remarked, sifting through her tools. “I bet they’d love to have the parts to something like this.” The water ninja was easily able to jam a screwdriver into one of the panels, prying it open and exposing the inner workings of the thing.

Jay watched anxiously over Nya’s shoulder as she worked, nerves wound so tight he looked like he was about to snap. “Haha yeah, bet they would…” he barely managed to respond as the other ninja ducked into the console to have a peek. Clearly excited by what she found, she looked back and motioned for the other to come take a look, but Jay stayed firmly rooted where he stood.

She sighed, leaning back a bit and looking him over. “Are you just gonna stand there or are you going to help me? Hand me those pliers over there.”

The lightning ninja seemed to snap out of his stupor. “Oh, uh… sure, right.” He shuffled over meekly, quickly passing her something from the box before shrinking back behind her again.

Nya looked at the tool in her hand and frowned. “Dude.”

“Y-yeah?”

“This is a wrench”

“Oh, sorry.”

Nya pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed, standing up and facing him. “Jay, c’mon. I know you’re concerned for your parents and all, but standing around there all nervous-like isn’t gonna make you feel better. You’re freaking yourself out. Let loose, stop worrying yourself to death for once in your life and have a little fun.”

Jay scowled. “Is this what you consider ‘fun’?”

“Uh, yeah.” The water ninja put a hand on her hip, gesturing out with the other. “We were never able to just… mess around with stuff with Wu hovering over us all the time. ‘Nya fix the ship, Nya you need to focus more on your training, Nya you’re the water ninja now, you don’t have time to fool around with this Samurai X nonsense anymore.’” She made a disgusted face as she imitated their master’s words. “But now, we get to do what _we_ want. And _I_ want to be able to pursue something I know I’m good at, instead of wasting my time being something I never asked to be in the first place.”

Jay shuffled his feet, fingers worrying the edges of his scarf as he thought about it. “But why this? I get the whole deal, just… why does it have to include breaking into an abandoned theme park, and messing with stuff that’s potentially, probably, _definitely_ dangerous?”

“Because dangerous is exciting! Besides, it’s not like we’re hurting anyone here. We’re just messing around with an old roller coaster that’s been sitting here doing nothing for years.”

“I guess…”

A wry smile suddenly formed on her face, as she casually slung an arm around the lightning ninja’s shoulder. “And are you going to tell me that the boy who can build a jet out of junkyard scraps can’t have this thing up and running better than when the park opened?”

At the challenge, the lightning ninja seemed to shake off his previous hesitancy, rolling up his sleeves and bending down to get a better look at the mechanics of the coaster. He picked through the wiring, mentally jotting down problem areas. “Well, it’s kinda rusted in here, but with a little cleaning and fixing some of these frayed wires, it should be good to run.”

“That’s the confidence I like to see!” She gave the other a gentle shake by the shoulder when a smile started to creep to his lips, and she got back down to continue to look over the ride. “To be honest, most of these parts are in really great shape, maybe if we just adjusted it here…?” she shoved both of her hands inside the console, unhooking a few pieces here and there, cleaning them off with a rag she brought along and wiring them back up just as easily as Jay started replacing cables.

After a few moments, Nya fitted the last bit into place, confident in her work. “That should do it! It looks pretty good in there to me.” With that, she stood up to try her hand at starting up the ride, pulling the lever back on the console. Buttons lit up like it wanted to work, however, there was no such luck at actually getting the thing to start.

“Hm… maybe it’s an issue with coaster itself? I’m not totally sure how these things work.”

“Hold on. Take a step back a bit,” Jay said. As she did, he rubbed his hands together, creating a few little sparks, before holding both his palms out and sending a streak of lightning into the open panel of the control box, sending a jolt through the system. After that, Nya pulled back on the lever again and lo and behold, the coaster lit up like a Christmas tree.

“Ha! Nailed it!” Nya shouted, throwing her fist up. “Good thinking, dude!”

They exchanged a high five, the other beamed all the while. He couldn’t help but laugh. “I didn’t think that would work, but look at that! _Totally_ nailed it.”

Nya stepped aside, gesturing at the console like an invitation. “So, would you like to take her for a test drive?”

Without hesitation, the lightning ninja took the controls, smiling in pride of his own work. “You bet I would.”

* * *

While they worked, Cole and Lloyd wandered the outskirts of the park.

“This place looks… terrible,” Lloyd said at last.

“No kidding. It’s kinda creepy like this,” Cole replied, running a hand over the wall of one of the buildings. “What do you think we should do?”

Lloyd pressed his lips together, giving the place a once-over again before speaking. “I’m thinking… maybe a remodel? Take out a few walls, open this place up a little more.”

“Oh-ho! Now you’re speaking my language, little man!” The earth ninja slammed his fist into his open palm, a grin plastered across his face. It wasn’t long before he wound up, about to drive his fist through the nearest wall, until they heard the faint mumbling of passers by, who didn’t know they were there.

Cole refrained, both he and Lloyd turning a bit as they “ninjas” in and amongst the chatter, coloring them interested and pulling them near to the fence to try and get a better listen.

“–dunno what to do. This is all just awful…” they heard as they moved up to listen through a gap in the fence.

“I know… I… I honestly can’t believe this is happening.”

“How could the ninjas do something like that? Just turn on us?”

“What do we do? L-like… Oh, gods… are we gonna die?”

While they were listening, behind them the other ninja came to join, Nya grinning as she spoke. “Hey, dudes. Jay and I totally got that roller coaster working and–”

The green ninja quickly held up a finger to his lips to tell her to be quiet, then made a motion towards the fence. She quickly did so, and all of them moved up similarly to listen.

“Probably! They’d love to see us killed! Just because there were a few bad apples! Now we all get to pay for it in blood. And to think! Our ‘saviors’ were just a bunch of teens in bright costumes thinking they could play superhero. Pah!” This voice was different than the other two.

“Don’t start with that, we’re not gonna die! Didn’t you hear?” the first person inquired.

“H-hear what?”

“It’s the Lady Iron Dragon. Apparently, she’s back, and she’s been sneaking people out of the city. If we have any hope, it’s to find her.”

The six ninja all exchanged a look of both equal shock and confusion. The Lady Iron Dragon? What was she doing in Ninjago City? Lloyd made the executive decision. They needed to know more. Deftly, he pushed the gap in the aging fence open wider, squeezing through it and straightening out to face the citizens on the other side.

There were seven people in total, each of them sharing the same wary, darting look. One of them looked rather young, and at the sight of the green ninja, his eyes went wide.

Lloyd cleared his throat. “What’s this about this ‘Lady Iron Dragon,’ huh?” he asked.

“Oh, gods… G-green Ninja! Lloyd! P-please! We don’t wanna die!” the youngest of the group stammered, shying away like most of the others.

“Tell me what you know about her.” It was a demand, this time, the other ninja coming up behind him and sharing an equally determined look.

There were a few moments of dead, frightened silence.

That was until an older looking man stepped up, standing in front of the frightened group and clenching his fists at his sides. “You don’t scare me. I’ve lived in this city for as long as I can remember, and there’s no way I’m going to let it fall to ruin because of some teenager who thinks he’s so important he can just push everyone else around.”

The other citizens glanced around, terrified they were about to face some sort of retaliation, until the man continued. “You’re just a coward like your father! We’re not going to take this crap! So you can try to fight us all you want, but we’re going to stand up for ourselves!”

At those words, everyone’s confidence seemed to be bolstered. That he was right, they shouldn’t take this.

“ _I’m_ the coward?” Lloyd spat back. “I’m the one who finally had the courage to stand up for myself!”

“Yeah, but most of us usually don’t stand up for ourselves by destroying everything!” another person shouted back.

“Seems like overcompensation to me. Why only punish a few when you can punish ‘em all, right? Real funny!”

“I can’t believe everyone was right. I wanted to give the kid the benefit of the doubt, and look where that got me!”

The green ninja pulled back slightly, eyes darting from person to person. “You think I wanted this? My hand was forced! This was the only way!”

“Ha! Sure it was! Did you even try any other way first?”

“I-I…”

Sparks flickered and threatened to catch on Kai’s hands. The others moved and sunk down ever so slightly, prepared wholeheartedly to fight.

Lloyd’s hands shook. Slowly, he lifted one, grasping at whoever was nearest him. His fingers caught Cole’s shirt and he turned to look, his face falling as he saw how almost all the color had seemed to drain from the others’ face. His attention quickly snapped back to the group of civilians, all of them now riled up against them, slinging insults and advancing on them. He gave a short huff, before lifting his foot and stomping harshly, sending out cracks along the ground that shot out jagged spikes of rock, purposefully missing everyone.

“Get out of here! All of you!” he bellowed, which snapped the fear back into everyone and sent them running.

All of them turned their attention back to Lloyd, who looked like he was about to be sick.

“Are you alright?” Kai asked, putting a hand on the other’s shoulder.

“I… He…” the blond almost couldn’t speak for a moment. The words wouldn’t form. “He was right. I’ve gotten… innocent people caught up in this…”

Cole bent down to gently hold Lloyd’s arm. “That’s not true, you heard how those guys were speaking… they hate us, just like everyone else in this city.”

“Yeah, we’re just trying to stick it to ‘em! It’s not like we’re out there, like, trying to kill people or whatever,” Kai added.

“They have every right to hate us after this!” The green ninja buried his head in his hands. “I just… I don’t know if we should do this anymore…”

“What? After all this?” Nya asked.

Lloyd shook his head. “I don’t know, I… I think I just need a moment. Alone.”

Hesitantly, the group nodded and he split off from them, walking a little bit down the street. Digging his hand into his pocket, he pulled out his phone to find yet more messages from his mother. When he was sure he was far enough away from the other ninja, he unlocked his phone, his hand hovering shakily over the most recent voice message.

He hit play.

 _“Lloyd, please, please answer me,”_ Koko’s voice came through the speaker, and it sounded as if she was about to start crying. _“Please, I’m begging you. You don’t have to do this, I… I just want you home. I just want my baby back. Please, Lloyd. Just… let me know you’re okay. I love you.”_

His body bent over as he felt her words like a physical blow. Guilt twisted his insides, growing larger and larger, grabbing him by the shoulders and trying to pull him down.

From deep within, anger rose up to meet it.

In one swift motion, Lloyd hurled his phone to the ground, splintering the screen and sending broken bits clattering across the concrete. It wasn’t enough. He raised his foot above it, crushing it into the street so the casing cracked.

It wasn’t enough.

Bringing his heel down harshly, he gave the device one more heavy stomp, smashing it beyond all hope of being usable again. For the next few moments, all he could do was glare down at the remains of the broken phone under his foot, breath heavy in anger. It wasn’t until he noticed how tense he was that he finally shifted, turning away from the destruction he’d caused.

That was enough of that.


End file.
